


Infinitive

by stoprobbers



Series: Future Perfect [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Engagement, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Idiots in Love, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Ridiculous, Romance, What Have I Done, domesticity for weirdos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-05-05 10:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14616003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: The day he decides he's going to propose to her, she's yelling at him for not putting the dishes away.A "Future Tense" sequel.





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> These two lend themselves to my favorite kind of domesticity, so here, have a lot of words about it.

The day he decides he's going to propose to her, she's yelling at him for not putting the dishes away. 

Well, not exactly. He's usually pretty good at putting the dishes away, and folding the laundry, and tidying up the living room when she leaves her books and papers and notes around. He points that out to her while she's gesturing at the full dish rack, which is _not_ the right move, because then she starts yelling about respect. 

Respecting how much work she has in this final semester of her fourth year at Northwestern, the end of the Bachelor part of her Bachelors-Masters program. Respecting how hard it is for her to lean on her parents for money, for her not to pull a paycheck, how guilty she feels not contributing to their household budget because she isn't done with school yet. How she tries to do extra things around the house to make his life easier, and then he doesn't even respect her enough to _notice_ them. He doesn't even say _thank you_. 

She's wearing his brown flannel shirt over a white t-shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and her hair is up in a messy ponytail, and she's flushed pink with irritation and glaring at him, and all he can think is, _I want to marry you_. 

He's not about to drop to one knee on their kitchen floor, though, so he takes hold of her upper arms until she stops ranting, looks her dead in the eye, and apologizes. 

She shakes him off, sighs, and tells him she's going to take a walk. 

While she's gone he puts on a record, puts away the dishes, puts water on to boil for pasta and starts to make dinner, moving on autopilot. 

It's not like he hasn't thought about marrying Nancy before; it's crossed his mind dozens of times since he kissed her in Murray Bauman's basement. But those thoughts have all been abstract, hazy visions of a future together where they both have gold bands on their left ring fingers, marriage less as an intentional act and more of a thing that _is_. 

Now, though, as he tears lettuce and cuts carrots and celery for a salad, he starts to think about how he would actually do it. 

He can't imagine anything elaborate. No candles throughout the apartment – between the makeshift dark room and hall closet full of developing chemicals their home is unusually flammable – or trail of rose petals leading to their room, to the bed. The very idea makes him cringe and he knows if he tried it he wouldn't even be able to get to the proposing part; Nancy would be too busy laughing at him. 

No fancy dinners or surprise trips either. The idea of putting a ring in a glass of champagne makes his head hurt from secondhand embarrassment.

He sprinkles the chopped vegetables on top of the lettuce and sets the bowl on their small kitchen table, digs around in the pantry for the spaghetti and a jar of pasta sauce. 

His mind keeps circling back to the same image: Nancy's face, a look of blank surprise slowly warming, first in her eyes and then into her cheeks and the corners of her mouth, until it blossoms into joy. Her hand coming up over her mouth, because he knows it will, and how she will nod silently but with increasing speed until he pulls her hand away from her mouth so he can put the ring on it, so he can kiss her. So he can run his fingers from slim gold ring to the scar on her palm, more faint with each passing year but still there. 

She still wears the same ring on her right index finger; he's never seen her wear any other. He wonders if an engagement ring will feel odd to her, if it'll feel heavy and strange on that finger at first. Wonders if he'll feel the same when he gets a wedding band to match. 

He is 23 years old, a freelance photographer who also works part time at the bar down the street, and the idea that he would be proposing to Nancy, to _anyone_ , should fill him with dread. He should be nervous, unsure, at least a _little_ self-doubting in undertaking such a momentous endeavor. 

But he's not. 

There are no knots in his stomach, no pounding in his chest, just a lifting, looping feeling like he's about to burst out laughing. 

He's too lost in his thoughts to hear her open their front door, or her footsteps down the hall. She startles him as he's dumping spaghetti into the pot by dropping a large bottle of Ocean Spray from the corner store down on the counter behind him, and he has to jump out of the way to keep from splashing himself with boiling water. 

He turns to face her. She's got her back to him still, reaching up into a cabinet to pull down her favorite tumbler, a cut crystal Old Fashioned glass she'd found in the Salvation Army store when they were first furnishing their apartment. He remembers her holding it up to the light to see what rainbows it would cast before wrapping both her hands around it and holding it tight to her stomach until they got to the cash register. 

He catches the silly smile on his face and schools it into something more neutral before she can turn around and ask him any pointed questions. 

She raises her eyebrows at him anyway. 

"Feel better?" he asks. 

She lets out a breath, holds up a finger, and fetches the bottle of vodka out of their freezer. He watches her mix herself a vodka cranberry, take a long sip, and set it down on the table as she crosses the room to him. 

"Sorry I yelled," she says when she's in front of him. 

"That's what I'm here for," he replies and pulls her into a hug. Takes a deep breath with his nose in her hair. Wonders if the change in him looks as obvious as it feels. 

He stirs the pasta as she opens the jar of sauce and dumps it into another pot, puts it on the stove to warm. As she sips her drink she starts to talk, telling him about the meeting with her department adviser earlier in the day, before she came home and lost her temper. They work side by side, moving smoothly around each other. 

"I don't understand what he wants from me," she's saying as he returns to the stove with the colander of drained pasta, puts it back in the pot and pours the sauce on top of it. She leans on the counter, close enough for her elbow to brush his side as he mixes it. "It's like he doesn't even think there's a point to me doing this. I don't know how to, like, _tell_ him that I'm serious about this if he hasn't figured it out by now." 

"That's bullshit," Jonathan agrees, wiping his hands on one of the tea towels that hang from the oven handle and turning back to her. She gestures to the table, and doesn't wait for him to sit. He takes his usual spot across from her and waits for her to stretch out her leg under the table and rest her foot on his knee. When she does he busies himself stroking the outside of her ankle as he considers what to say next. 

"Can I ask you a question?" he finally says. She raises her eyes to him, points her foot so she can poke him in the stomach with her big toe. 

"Of course." 

"Why didn't you ever change advisers?" 

Her sigh is heavy before she drains her glass and gets up to pour herself another drink. 

"I've already done at least three quarters of the work with him. And there's no one else that really does the feature and investigative reporting he does. I just wish he wasn't such an _asshole_. He keeps asking me where I'm thinking of working after this, keeps saying _bullshit_ about not being able to work a crime beat. Keeps telling me to think about TV news. I don't want to be on fucking TV." She's properly worked up now, almost yelling, and Jonathan holds up his hands in surrender. 

"I'm just saying you've hated him for like a year now." 

"I know," she sighs and puts down her drink, sets her head in her hands. "I think I just have to get through this semester with him taking me seriously. Next year they reassign me to an adviser in the graduate school, and I don't have to deal with Perry anymore." 

She's not done, he can tell, so he just waits. 

"It's just…" she finally says, and it sounds like the words are a struggle to get out. "He never says this to any of the _men_ in our department. It's only me and Alice. So on the one hand I know he thinks I do good work, and on the other hand I think he thinks I'm just gonna give up as soon as school is over and become a secretary. And that is _bullshit_ , Jonathan. _Bullshit_. It's the nineties, for fuck's sake." 

The idea that anyone, especially a teacher, would underestimate Nancy Wheeler never ceases to amuse him. 

"You should tell him about exposing Hawkins Lab," Jonathan chuckles, and takes her hands across the table. "Ask Murray to give him a call." 

She's been exchanging letters with Murray since she decided she really was going to be a reporter. He'd do it for her, Jonathan knows; he thinks of her as his protégé. But there's a look on her face of deep frustration and it takes him a moment to realize he just suggested using another man to prove her merit to her stupid adviser. 

The look fades, though, and she snickers through her nose, almost more of a sigh than a laugh. 

"I can just imagine the two of _them_ talking." 

He feels some of the tension flow out of her and gives her fingers a squeeze. 

"Want me to make you a plate?" 

"Yeah, I'll grab forks and stuff. You know, so we can actually eat." 

"I was gonna get to it!" 

"Sure, sure." She laughs for real this time and he smiles wide at her and watches her pull plates out of the cabinet and forks out of the silverware drawer. 

She has to remind him to put pasta on the plates; suddenly all he can think about is how he wants to marry her _right now_. 

+++ 

He calls his mother as soon as Nancy leaves for class the next morning. 

"Hello?" Her voice never fails to soothe him instantly. He can see her wide brown eyes and long brown hair and he smiles. 

He intends to say _Hey, Mom_ , but what comes out is "I'm going to ask Nancy to marry me." 

There is a long pause. 

"Jonathan?" 

"Yeah, yeah, sorry," he finds he's oddly breathless. "Hey, Mom." 

"Hey sweetie," she says, slowly, and he can see the grin frozen on her face and the amused sparkle in her eye as if she's in front of him, and there's an almost sarcastic note in her voice when she continues. "So. What's new with you?" 

He can't help but laugh, covering his mouth with his free hand and closing his eyes. He can feel his cheeks burning. 

"Sorry, I didn't really mean to _lead_ with that." He leans on kitchen doorframe and spins his coffee mug on the counter. "How are you?" 

"Oh I don't think so young man." Her tone is firm but he can hear the laughter behind it. "You're planning to do what now?" 

"I—I'm going to ask Nancy to marry me." It comes out hushed, as if the first time was a spontaneous confession but the repetition means admitting to a plan. 

"Well I can't say I'm surprised."

He doesn't know what he's expecting but that's not it. "What?" 

"Oh come on, Jonathan. She changed schools for you and you've been _living_ together for three years now. And, really, you think I don't think about the cabin anymore? I knew, even then. Even before you two did." 

It's been years. Actual years, in a way he spent a long time believing would never be possible. It has been long enough that they've recovered themselves, the people they used to be and would find their way back to. It was a long time before he believed that could happen, and a surprisingly long time since it did. 

"That's not why..." He finds he doesn't have the right words to finish his sentence. 

"Oh, sweetie, of course not." His mother's voice is so _warm_ and he suddenly wants to drive down for dinner, just for the hug and the way her eyes sparkle. "But you were partners before you were ever… _you_. Even back then, I think we all knew you weren't about to leave her side any time soon. Her either." 

He doesn't know what to say to that. He spent his teenage years trying to hide; it's a shock his mother saw him so clearly. 

"I wasn't—that wasn't what I was thinking at all." He breathes it out almost in awe. 

"What were you thinking?" 

"She was yelling at me." It comes out lilting, almost like a song. "About not putting away the dishes. And all I could think was I want her to yell at me like this forever." 

His mother laughs. A real, long, belly-deep laugh. 

This time when he smiles he doesn't hide it behind his hand. 

+++ 

Jewelry store clerks are judgmental and as Jonathan walks down Broadway he thinks about the revenge he'd like to have on the smirking, skeptical man behind the glass counter. The man had trotted out ring after ring he couldn't even dream of affording, then looked at him with pity as he'd simpered, _I'm sorry, we just don't have anything in your price range_. 

He's really not a _violent_ person, but he does think it'd be awfully satisfying to punch that guy right in the nose. 

He opens the door to Reckless Records, makes a beeline for the New Used bin and waves at the clerk behind the counter as he starts flipping. If no one wants to sell him an engagement ring he will happily spend his meager budget on music instead. 

Who needs a diamond ring anyway, right? He and Nancy have never been traditional. 

He sighs when he finishes flipping through, wanders over to the New Arrivals rack and just stares at it. 

He hasn't been this bothered by being poor in a long time, hasn't even really noticed now that he's not in a small suburb that judges the struggles of a single mother. He's not sure what's more upsetting; that he suddenly feels poor again or that it bothers him. 

"Jonathan, you alright?" 

A voice pulls him from his reverie. The clerk, Elliott, is now at his side with an armful of records. 

"Yeah, fine," he answers, shaking his head. "Anything good in there?" 

"If you're in the market for the new Billy Idol or The Bangles' greatest hits, sure." 

"I'll pass," Jonathan laughs. 

"You look bothered, man," Elliott says as he starts arranging the records on the shelves. 

"I'm just… trying to get something for Nancy, but I can't find anything that's right." 

It's not a lie. It's also not the truth. So far the only one who knows about his intentions is his mom, he's not about to tell the record store clerk who knows his name because he's a regular. He hasn't even told his _brother_. 

Elliott is talking and he tunes back in just in time to hear him say "new place down the street." 

"Sorry?" 

"I said you should try the new place down the street," Elliott repeats. "Someone just opened a secondhand shop. Kim hasn't stopped talking about it all week." 

Kim's the other clerk. Nancy always chats with her whenever she comes in with him, and he's heard her asking where she's gotten her dresses and necklaces before. It's not a bad idea. 

"Thanks, man," he says with a grin and leaves. 

The shop is only a few doors down, clearly new among the shabbier video rental stores and fetish shops and dive bars. There's a gauzy floral dress on a mannequin in the window and Jonathan makes a mental note not to let Nancy know this place exists unless they want to skip grocery shopping for a month. 

A bell chimes as he pushes the door open, and the tall, thin man behind the counter gives him a long up and down look before he smiles. 

"Hiii," the man says, and Jonathan tries not to blush at the loud flirtatious note in his voice. "Can I help you find something?" 

There's a jewelry case next to the register and he walks over to it. The man is still looking steadily at him and smirking. Jonathan resists the urge to roll his eyes and instead takes a look at the row of rings closest to the glass. 

There's a gold one in the middle, small and thin and delicate, that looks to have several small stones set in some sort of filigree. He points to it, taps the glass to keep his hand from shaking. 

"Can I look at that one?" 

The man pulls it out, sets on the glass. When Jonathan picks it up he can see the filigree looks like vines, winding around three delicate and sparkling white stones. 

"It's 18 karat gold plated, and they're not diamonds, they're crystal, but they're high quality." The man looks him up and down again. "I take it you're not buying it for yourself?" 

"I don't know if I'm buying it at all," Jonathan murmurs, but feels the bite of the metal in the pad of his thumb as he grips it tighter. "How much?"

"$50." 

Something funny happens in his chest, like his heart is pausing. He feels a little lightheaded as he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. 

"I'll take it." 

He hides it in a bag of frozen peas in the back of their freezer, and is glad he's the one who usually cooks. 

+++ 

He is trying hard to project the image that everything is normal, everything is fine, but he's not sure it's working. 

He almost has a heart attack every time Nancy opens the freezer, for one, which is kind of inconvenient now that the weather has properly warmed and their little, non-air conditioned apartment feels it. In the heat Nancy needs ice for her drinks and he might die before he can promise to stay with her until death do them part. 

She gives him weird looks and he catches himself stuttering around her like they're back in the hallways of Hawkins High. This person he seems to have reverted back to stuns him. Was he _really_ that awkward when he was sixteen? 

She comes into his bar after dinner on a Thursday, sits down in her usual spot near the service well. He pours her a vodka cranberry, and sets it down in front of her as she settles onto the stool. 

"Hi." He smiles at her. She uses the foot bar to push herself up and halfway over the bar, and he meets her halfway for a kiss. "How was school?" 

"Everyone else is getting ready to graduate, I'm signing up for more fucking classes. Remind me why I decided to do a fifth year of this," she sighs, dropping back down onto the seat. 

"Because you're a hopeless bookworm who loves school more than anything." 

"Screw you." She gives him the finger. 

He grins at her. "Because you get a master's degree and a job with the Trib." 

"Thank you," she smiles back. "I love you." 

"Love you too." 

"How's _your_ night?" 

"Slow." He leans his elbows on the bar, lets his hair fall across his face. "Better now that you're here, though." 

She reaches up and tugs on one of the locks. "'Kay, Kurt." 

"Ugh, _Nance_." She's been calling him that for over a month now, ever since the Reader tapped him to photograph this new Seattle band called Nirvana at the Metro and he'd come home with a copy of their album, "Bleach," demanding she listen. It was too harsh for her, he knew it would be, but he'd been hoping she might like it because he did, and while she wrinkled her nose at the buzzsaw guitars she'd looked between the photo of the long-haired band on the inner sleeve and his own past-his-ears hair and he knew what was about to happen. 

_Maybe_ he bears a passing resemblance to the lead singer. They both have blonde hair and a dimple in their chin, but that's _not_ why he is growing his hair longer. He _likes_ it. And anyway, he'd been growing it out _before_ he'd ever heard of the band. 

He scowls at her and she tugs on his hair again before getting up to drop some quarters in the jukebox. The bar is nearly empty and the music has gone silent. 

When he straightens up again Davey, the other bartender, is laughing at him and he glares at him, too. 

He's about to say something but tinkling electric organ comes over the speakers instead and they both turn to where Nancy is standing. 

"Oh come on," Davey groans as "Dancing in the Moonlight" starts playing. "It's a _dive_ bar, Nancy. We can't have catchy songs in here. You're gonna alienate our customers." 

"Hey, leave her alone!" Tom, one of their regulars, turns around to face Nancy, swaying slightly on his stool as he does. Earl, who is sitting beside him, reaches out an arm to steady him. "Dat's da first good song I've heard all night, you let her pick da tunes, alright kid? No one wants to listen to the weird crap you like." 

Nancy's laughing and Jonathan's laughing and Davey is rolling his eyes as she comes back to the bar and grabs his hand and tugs. 

"Dance with me," she says, walks around to the end of the bar but not actually behind it, tugging harder. "C'mon, Jonathan." 

"I'm working." 

"The only people here are Tom and Earl, and they don't care." She grins at him, trains her gaze on the two middle-aged drunks at the other end of the bar. "You guys don't care, right?" 

"Dance with her, Jonny Boy," Earl calls and he scowls at the nickname. "You gotta keep your woman happy." 

"Come onnnn, Jonathaaaaan," Nancy whines, and he makes faces at her as he follows her out from behind the bar and pulls her into his arms. 

They've danced to this song a thousand times – at her house, at school dances, on summer nights with Steve laughing incredulously, in their apartment, in other dive bars when they're both flushed and drunk and giddy. They fall easily back into the steps, her hips moving against his, and he knows exactly which beats to spin her out, pull her back in. He dips her and she throws her head back and laughs and the words slip out before he can bite them back. 

"Marry me." 

He's murmured it, thankfully, and under the volume of the jukebox and her laughter the words are muffled and lost. Still, when he stands her up again he thinks she must have heard _something_ because there's a crinkle between her eyebrows and something deep behind her eyes. 

"What was that?" 

"I love you," he says and kisses her before she can ask any more questions. 

+++ 

On Sundays they have dinner with Will. His little brother hops on the Red Line from his dorm building in the Loop to Uptown, catches them up on how things are going his freshman year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

He'd shot up like a weed in high school, ended up a few inches taller than Jonathan (though every time anyone brings that up Jonathan puffs up his shoulders and straightens to his fullest height and insists they're the same. If Will ducks down a little to make it true, they all pretend not to notice). 

His little brother is not the small, shy kid he was in middle school, but going to school in Chicago was clearly splitting the difference to keep close to family. Jonathan doesn't blame him, _can't_ blame him – he couldn't leave the radius of an easy drive home either. 

Will's still skinny as all get-out but he's sporting a sleeker haircut and what appears to be an attempt at a mustache on his upper lip. Jonathan makes a mental note to tell him to give up; neither of them inherited the facial hair gene. 

Will talks about the impending departure of his roommate, his new fake ID ("Just come into my bar when I'm working," Jonathan tells him with a shake of his head but Will looks away and says something about wanting to try _other_ places and Jonathan wonders if someone's already told him about Berlin and Smart Bar, if his little brother is being safe), his finals and his summer plans over glasses of wine as he makes their old favorite weeknight dinner, the Byers' Famous Mac N Cheese N Peas. 

Will is telling Nancy, who's lounging at the kitchen table, about his final project crit and Jonathan's grating cheddar to add to the packet of cheese powder when his little brother crosses to the freezer and starts digging around for a bag of frozen peas. He almost chokes on the spot. 

He has no idea how to tell his little brother to stop _right now_ , there's an engagement ring hidden in one of those bags and only Jonathan knows which one. 

Nancy saves the day, wrinkling her nose. 

"Peas are _disgusting_." She mimes a gag. "C'mon, can't we leave them out this time? You _always_ make me eat them." 

"We never make you eat them! We always leave them out. They're good and they're good for you," Will argues. 

"I don't remember you being my dad, Will—" 

His little brother is still rooting around in the freezer, and Jonathan manages to remember how to speak just in time. 

"It's okay, we'll skip the peas this time. Next time Nance is out I'll let you know and we can make it the _right_ way, okay?" 

Will gives him a funny look but closes the freezer and Jonathan finds he can breathe again. 

They don't bring it up at all during dinner but once they're done eating Will suggests they sit out on the narrow wooden porch on the back of their apartment in the warm early summer night. 

Nancy says something about having to call her mom back before it gets too late – and it's strange, the decidedly arbitrary one-hour difference between Chicago and Hawkins but it means they forget, often, how late they're actually calling home – so Will and Jonathan settle onto the folding lawn chairs that pass for patio furniture, each still holding a glass of wine. 

"What?" Jonathan asks after Will looks at him steadily for too long. 

"Got something you want to tell me?" 

The back of his neck prickles and he runs a hand through strands that are closer to shoulder-length every day. "What did Mom say?" 

Will smirks. "Just that you have something to tell me." 

"Ugh," he runs his hand through his hair again, glances back over his shoulder through the screen door to make sure Nancy's not in the kitchen anymore. Leans in close to his little brother and breathes it out almost as one word. "I'm gonna ask her to marry me." 

"I knew it!" Will crows and Jonathan shushes him sharply. "Sorry. But I did. What, did you hide the ring in the peas?" 

"How did you know?!" 

"You looked like you were about to have a stroke when I went to get them. I guess I wouldn't want me to cook a diamond by accident either." 

"It's not a diamond but yeah, I'm pretty sure she has no idea, so if you could keep it a secret I'd _really_ appreciate it." 

"Of course, Jonathan," Will is smiling ear to ear. "You know, Mom and I placed bets on whether you guys would get married." 

"Really?" That's weird. _Really_ weird. 

"Yup." 

"Did you bet for or against?" 

"Against." He must look wildly offended because Will snickers. "I thought you guys would just shack up forever. You were always so anti-anything normal. What's more normal than marriage?" 

"Hmph." Jonathan frowns and takes a gulp of his wine, wondering why he feels so insulted. Will is still laughing at him when Nancy's voice drifts onto the porch. 

"Jonathan!" 

They rise, following the sound to the living room only to find her balanced precariously on her toes on their coffee table, trying to reach the bulb in their ceiling light. It's gone out. She's somehow gotten the light cover off, but he has no idea how; her fingers just barely graze the tip of the bulb from her perch. 

They had to buy an extra-tall step stool so he could hang the curtains above their massive front window and change the light bulbs in the overhead fixtures, and even then it's a stretch for him. Yet here she is, six inches shorter than him and halfway through the task on her own, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth and brow furrowed with determination. 

He thinks again about the ring hidden in the freezer and wonders if he gets it, will she fall and break her neck? 

Will shakes his head and walks over to the stereo, crouching in front of the record shelves and perusing his options. Nancy looks over her shoulder at Jonathan. 

"Gimme a hand?" 

"Yeah," he shakes his head to clear those thoughts and walks over to the table. Places his hand on her hips to steady her and guide her at the same time, ducks down between her legs until her thighs are hooked over his shoulders and stands. She lets out a little squeak and her hands fly to his hair, gripping his head tightly as she gets her balance. 

He carefully moves the coffee table over with his foot until he's under the light and feels her stretch and shift as she unscrews the bulb. When her hand returns to his head he steps over to the couch and tips until she falls onto it. She's laughing as he takes the dead bulb from her and tosses it into a trashcan. 

"Not exactly what I had in mind but that works for me," she giggles, carefully removes the new bulb from its cardboard packaging, and looks at him expectantly. "Up?" 

_Marry me_ , he wants to say. _Marry me and almost kill yourself trying to change light bulbs on your own for the rest of our lives. Please._  

He ducks instead so she can climb onto his shoulders and digs his fingers into the flesh of her thighs as she screws in the new bulb. Behind him, Will makes a sound of exasperation as he swaps records on the turntable. 

"You guys are so fucking weird." 

Jonathan laughs, carefully maneuvers so Nancy can keep screwing in the light bulb but he can see his brother from the corner of his eye. 

"Who wants to be normal, right?" 

+++ 

In the end it happens like this: It's a warm day and Nancy wants to walk by the lake. 

He's got his feet up and his nose buried in a book, but when he looks up she's haloed in front of the window with her hair up and wearing that light blue sundress he likes so much, and he can't say no. 

Well. He tries to get her to climb onto his lap on the couch first but she just laughs at him and swats his hands away until he gives in and lets her pull him up. 

He watches the muscles in her back as she slips her purse over her shoulder and dips his hand into his pocket. 

He took the ring out of the bag of peas a week ago, has moved it from pants pocket to shorts pocket and back again every day, jerking out of sleep at the crack of dawn from the fear that Nancy's decided to do laundry and found it. (As if Nancy has ever done laundry without reminding, and whining, and a general sense of discontent.) 

The words live in the back of his throat, on the verge of popping out a dozen times a day. He gave up on planning anything and instead resolved to be prepared for when he can't keep it in anymore. 

His fingertips brush metal as he steps up behind Nancy, dips down and drops a kiss on the back of her neck. 

She smiles at him shyly and takes his hand, leading him out the door. 

He tucks her into his side as they stroll east to the lake, feels her slide her hand into his back pocket. She rambles as they walk, stories about her friends and whatever pops into her mind, and he lets her words wash over him. 

The sky is blue and clear and the sun and the breeze and her voice all seem to conspire to make him feel dreamy enough to almost walk into traffic as they're crossing under Lake Shore Drive. It's only her arm around his waist that pulls him back. 

"Jesus," she gasps, holding him tighter, and he wraps his other arm around her for a brief hug. 

"Sorry, sorry," he says into her hair. "I zoned out there for a minute." 

"I didn't realize I was that boring." The light changes, the walk signal lights up, and they continue on. "Wait, did I just almost bore you to _death_?" 

"I'm not bored!" he laughs and tightens his grip around her shoulders. 

"I apparently bored you into almost walking into traffic so…" 

"You could never bore me. I zoned out. It's so nice out, and you're so pretty—" 

"Oh, cut that out." She smacks his stomach with her free hand and rolls her eyes. "Suck up." 

"I'm not sucking up." 

She lets him go as park gives way to beach, slides her sandals off and steps into the sand. Lets out a happy sigh and reaches her hand out for him to take, to join her. Her hair has come loose from its bun, is whipping around her face with the lake breeze, and he's just so in love with her. 

So he takes her hand and stands at her side and the words just pop out. 

"Do you want to get married?" 

She gives a little _hmm_ , tips her head to the side as she contemplates. 

"Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely not as freaked out by it as I was when we were sixteen. God, do you remember that? With your dad's gun and the cans, and we were hunting a _monster_ but all I could think about was my parents. I was _so_ convinced that I was going to get married right after high school and turn into my mom—" She's pulling on his hand, trying to continue on their walk. 

"No," he interrupts, standing firm. "No, I mean, do you want to marry me?" 

She looks puzzled more than anything. "Who else would I marry?" 

"I'm not doing this right," he mutters, biting down on the urge to giggle like a lunatic, and drops her hand, digging in his pocket instead. He finds the ring, pulls it out and holds it up, trying to keep from shaking too much. "I mean _will_ you marry me?" 

Nancy is frozen. She is gaping at him, her eyes no longer squinting in the sun and instead trained on the ring. He can't move as he waits for her to answer, feels every muscle in his body tense as hard as stone. He can't even breathe. 

Slowly the corners of her mouth turn up into a smile and she meets his eyes. 

He remembers he's supposed to go down on one knee, is dropping down as she breathes out, "Yeah." 

"What?" He looks up at her, unable to believe he heard right. 

"Yes," she says, louder and more firmly, and the smile on her face is the one he's been imagining for weeks now. " _Yes_." 

He opens his mouth to say something in return, an affirmation of his own or maybe _I love you_ , but instead she tackles him and knocks him onto his back and he can't even get out a sound of surprise before her lips are on his. 

He almost loses the ring in the sand, manages to palm it at the last second before his arms wrap around her and he kisses her back with all the love and _relief_ coursing through his veins. 

Her hands are in his hair, on his cheeks, and he is ready to get lost in her right here, just keep kissing her in the sand as someone whistles at them, but the ring is digging into his palm and he's so, so ready to see if it fits her.

"Nance," he says against her mouth, "Nancy."

"I love you," she replies. "Jonathan, I love you." 

"No, I mean—" he laughs, shifts under her and manages to get himself into a sitting position. "Give me your hand." 

They're both trembling, shaking enough that he has to hold her hand in one of his and slide the ring on with the other. There's a moment as the ring goes over her knuckle that he's worried he guessed too small, that the crystals and vines distracted him from how well he knows her hands, how strong and steady they are and how slim when she threads their fingers together, tugging him off into their next mission or adventure. 

But it does go over, slides into place and they're both staring at it like it's treasure, or maybe an alien.

"Whoa," she breathes. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah," he agrees but he's looking at her face. She catches his gaze and blushes. 

"Stop it." 

"Stop what?"

"Looking at me like that." 

"Like what?"  


"I don't know. Like something's different?" 

He takes her hand, runs his thumb over the ring. "It sorta is." 

"I guess." She looks down at the ring again, at his hand wrapped around hers.   


"What?"

"You know, when we were young Barb and I used to talk about getting out of Hawkins and traveling the world, escaping our stupid, small town to exotic places. I didn't think… I didn't think I would ever find anything I could love there, you know, other than my family, and I didn't think I'd ever… I couldn't have imagined I'd end up here, like _this_ , with _you_." She sounds breathless with admission, runs her fingertip over the crystals sparkling in the sun. 

He wants to feign offense, wants to say something about how he didn't think he'd end up with here either he was going to New York to be a famous photographer, but for a second they're both sixteen again and standing at the trunk of his car with a box of bullets and bear traps, on the horizon of a very strange and foreign and bizarrely _right_ adventure, and the same question rises, unbidden, to his lips. 

"What's the weirdest part? Me, or the ring?" 

Her smile is brighter than the sun. 

"You," she answers, leaning her forehead against his. "It's definitely you." 

There's a small crowd around them now, and usually he'd be mortified to have something like this witnessed by anyone at all, but all it takes is a tilt of his chin to kiss her again, so he does. 

If the people around him cheer, well, he thinks he's earned it. 

+++ 

It's funny. He asked her and she agreed but as she's sprawled on top of him, kissing his chest he thinks they don't even _need_ to get married as long as they can stay like this, just like this, forever. 

He's trying to catch his breath but Nancy's making it hard, the way her mouth is moving down his torso, and he has to grab and her shoulders, pull her back up. 

"Stop, stop," he laughs, wrapping his arms around her so she can't do anything but settle on top of him. "I need a break." 

"Do you?" she wonders, nuzzling his neck. "Do you really?"  
  
" _Yes_ ," he laughs and closes his eyes. Her fingers walk up his chest, his neck, following the moles and freckles there, and comes to rest on his cheek and he can _feel_ it, the metal, the ring, cooler than her skin, which is flushed and warmed by what they've been doing. The giggle escapes him entirely against his will and he can feel her snort against the underside of his jaw. 

"I feel, like, drunk," he admits. She sits up a little at that. 

"Ooh, that's a good idea. Do we have any champagne? I'm gonna go see if we have champagne—" 

"No, stay here." He tightens her grip on her. 

"But we should celebrate—" 

"We don't have any champagne," he tells her. "I didn't really, uh, plan this." 

She frowns at him, wiggles her ring finger at him. "You had this." 

"Yeah, no, I mean," he's stuttering again and the glinting gold in their room's warm afternoon light doesn't help. "I didn't know it was going to be today. I just knew I was gonna do it." 

She looks down at him, eye twinkling. "How long?"  
  
"How long what?"  


"How long have you known?"  


"Since April 5th." He can feel his face burning; he didn't mean to admit he knows the exact date. 

He expects to be teased about it, but the look on Nancy's face is unexpectedly soft, unexpectedly warm. She strokes her thumb along his cheekbone as she looks down at him. 

"You didn't have to, you know. I was happy. I _am_ happy, I mean, I'm still happy, but it's you, you know, you're what makes me happy." She looks frustrated and he wants very badly to kiss her. "I don't need to be married to you to be happy." 

"I know," he replies simply and pulls her down so he can brush his lips over hers. "I wanted to. I _want_ to." 

"To what?"  
  
"Marry you." 

She giggles this time, high and wild, and hangs onto his neck as he rolls them, settling over her, cradled by her, where he feels most like he's home. 

"Ugh," she says, shifting under him in a way that makes his blood warm a little faster. "You got sand all in the bed." 

"That's not my fault." 

"It's from your hair." 

"I'm not the one who tackled me on the beach." 

"I'm not the one who _proposed_ to me on the beach." 

"But you're the one who wanted to walk—" he cuts himself off, flicks his hair out of his eyes and feels a fine spray of sand settle on his shoulders. "You know what? Okay. That's true. Should I take it back?" 

"No!" Her arms tighten around his neck, her legs wrap around his waist. Her eyes slide away from his as she bites her bottom lip and it takes him a moment to realize she's blushing. She mumbles something he can't hear. 

"What?"  
  
Her eyes fly back to his and her chin takes on the sharpness he recognizes as her screwing up her courage. He has no idea why she's suddenly gone shy. 

"Say it again," she finally says. He can't stop the grin from spreading across his face.

"Marry me." 

+++ 

They manage, after a while, to drag themselves out of bed and into the shower, to change the sandy sheets and pull on clothes and eat a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

They stretch out on the sofa; she curls up between his legs with her back to his chest. Usually they watch the news every evening, at least when they're home together, but they've lost track of time so Wheel of Fortune is playing softly in the background. It doesn’t matter; neither of them is really paying attention. She rests her left palm on his, faded scar over faded scar, and he twists the ring around her finger, watching the gold and the crystals reflect the dimming evening light. 

"Did you tell anyone you were doing this?" she asks after a long silence. Her hair is still damp against his cheek and when he breathes in he can smell her floral shampoo. 

"My mom." He laughs quietly. "Will figured it out, too. I should probably call them tomorrow."

"Did you talk to my parents? Mike?"  
  
"No," he shakes his head. "I don't need permission." 

"Good," she says firmly and sighs. "My mom's going to want a wedding." 

"You think mine won't?" 

"No, no, Jonathan," she turns a little, twists so she can look at him, eyes as large and serious as they were when they were planning a trap for an actual monster. "My mom is going to want _a wedding_." 

He thinks about that for a second, about Karen Wheeler and her kind eyes and gentle voice and incredibly elaborate birthday, holiday, and graduation parties. He can feel the look of horror come over his face, knows it probably looks a lot like Nancy's. She nods seriously at him. 

"I—Honestly, Nance, I really didn't think that far ahead." 

"Well," she says, and he knows this tone of voice, this affected casualness that means she's actually come up with a solution but doesn't want to seem _too_ eager. "What if… what if we just went to City Hall instead and then my mom can throw the party she wants for us next time we're home?" 

"City Hall?" 

He wasn't lying; he hadn't really thought past the proposal part in practical terms. But part of him had expected Nancy to want the kind of wedding her mom likely would want to throw her. Part of him remembered the girl wearing pearls and ribbons in her hair in high school. 

"Yeah," Nancy is saying. "City Hall does weddings Monday through Friday. It's $30 for a license, and we just have to wait one day to use it, and we don't even have to make an appointment. We can show up in the morning and be married by noon." 

He's gaping at her. How on earth does she know all _that?_  

"What," she says, smirking at his stunned expression. "You think you were the only one thinking about this?" 

He should have known. Oh, he _should have known_. He feels a little lightheaded, and he's smiling like an idiot. He hates that. Only Nancy can make him do that. 

"So when do you want to go downtown?" he asks instead, fighting to regain control of his face. 

"Well," she says, considering. Turns fully on the sofa so that she's cross-legged and facing him, pushing his legs until his knees are bent over her thighs to accommodate her. "Wait, hold on." 

She jumps up, runs into the kitchen and he takes the opportunity to stretch out on the sofa again, waiting. When she returns, calendar in one hand and a red permanent marker in the other, she doesn't ask him to move, just straddles his lap and sets the calendar on his chest. He looks down at it, then at her, and glares. 

"I am not a table." 

"Shut up. You are now," she bites her lip as she runs her fingers over the dates. "Okay, you've got shoots tomorrow and Thursday and then Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Are you at the bar this weekend?" 

"No, I'm shooting Friday and Saturday too, I didn't write those down. I'm at the bar Sunday and Monday." 

"But Ashley's party is Friday." 

"Day shoot." 

"Hmm, okay. I'm meeting with Dennis about that internship Tuesday, so that's out, but it wouldn't start until June so that gives me a couple weeks without a schedule. Ummm. Well." She looks up at him, finger tapping on a Monday two weeks away. "We need some time to get you a ring, maybe get some other stuff? We can get the license next Thursday, right, go back on Monday morning for the wedding? What do you think?" 

He thinks he can't quite breathe. He thinks his heart is going to burst out of his chest. He thinks this all seems very, very fast and not nearly fast enough.

"I think that's perfect. "

She smiles at him, wide and warm, and carefully, purposefully circles the date in red. He watches her write 'get married' in her neat print. He wonders if she can feel his heart pounding through his chest, through the paper. 

When she looks up there's something mischievous gleaming in her eyes.

"Think you're ready to have sex again?" she asks, tossing the calendar and marker onto the table. "I really want to have sex with you again." 

His laughter echoes off the walls and ceiling, and as she peppers kisses on his face and neck he basks in the warmth of this happiness, pure and exciting and new.


	2. Chapter 2

He's trying to develop his last batch of photos through ever-more-crossed eyes when she knocks on the door.

They abandoned the idea of using their second bedroom solely as a guest room only a few months after moving to Chicago. He booked more jobs more quickly than he'd expected, and renting dark room time was a drain on their budget. So they got black-out curtains for the window and red light bulbs and lived on buttered noodles and PB&J sandwiches for a few months so he could buy secondhand equipment and large jars of chemicals and set up his own dark room instead.

They keep it set up most of the time, but it's easy to break down and put away whenever Mike and El or Will or Steve want to come crash for the weekend, provided they don't mind sleeping with an enlarger in the corner. So far they haven't had any complaints.

"Just a minute," he calls softly but Nancy's ignored him, slipping in through a crack in the door behind a large, heavy blanket and waiting until it's closed to cast the blanket aside with an indignant sputter. (It's a janky system, but it works.)

"God I hate that thing. Jonathan, we're supposed to be at Ashley and Scott's in like half an hour and you smell like chemicals," she says, sliding up behind him and winding her arms around his waist. He feels her lift onto her toes to look over his shoulder as he focuses the image on the metal cover protecting his photo paper. "Do they have sweaters tied over this shoulders?"

"They were trying to be ironic, but I think it just comes off goofy." He turns off the light, slides the cover off, sets the timer and starts the exposure. She stays perfectly still against him as he works and he smiles slightly to himself. He doesn't need her to be so careful, but he appreciates it.

"We have to go," she says again, releases him as he steps over to the table of trays and chemicals. Watches by his elbow as the image blooms into existence.

He thought she was beautiful standing at his elbow it the red glow of the dark room almost seven years ago and he thinks she looks just as beautiful now, with her hair shorter and some age on her face. He feels her smile against his lips when he leans down and drops a kiss on them.

"Can't I just wear this?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you look homeless. Also you reek of chemicals and you'll go up in flames as soon as someone lights a cigarette." She looks up at him, eyes wide. "Can you wait until after we get married to burn yourself alive?"

The little high giggle that escapes him is entirely involuntary and has Nancy doubled over with laugher. It's been happening a lot in the last week, every time she brings up their plan for the courthouse. Nothing's ever made him giggle like that before and he hates it. He flips her off as he finishes the last photo and clips it to the line.

"Are you gonna help me clean up or just laugh at me?"

"Just laugh at you," she gets out between giggles, but moves to help him pour the chemicals carefully back into their jars. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust once they're back out in the hallway.

"Woof," she says, waving a hand in front of her face as she pushes him down the hall towards the bedroom. "Seriously, you have to change. I think I'm getting high just standing next to you."

"Are you sure that's not just my powerful, manly charisma?" he asks, turning to look at her. He's wearing a loose and wrecked pair of cut off jean shorts and a t-shirt that's on the verge of falling apart, and he's still a skinny, pale thing, but he cocks his hip and ducks his chin and tries to look impressive anyway.

The distinctly _unimpressed_ look on Nancy's face is everything he hoped for.

"Yes," she deadpans. "There's nothing more manly then your skinny legs and pointy elbows."

"Oh, I'll show you some pointy elbows." He pulls off his t-shirt, throws it at her, laughs when it hits her square in the face. She drops it on the floor and advances slowly at him.

"Oh, bad move, Byers."

They're only forty-five minutes late to the party.

It's already raging, the top-floor apartment packed with elated about-to-be-graduates. It takes seconds for them to get separated, Nancy whisked away to the kitchen for a drink, Jonathan pulled over to Ashley and her fellow photography students to discuss their senior show.

He's flipping through Ashley's print book, offering his admiration and the occasional critique, when he hears Scott's voice above the din, a clear shout of, " _Hold the fuck on_."

The noise quiets a little, but no one is really paying attention until the shout comes again, this time with his name: "Hold the _fucking fuck on_. Byers!!"

His head snaps up in time to see Scott shoving his way through the crowd, his hand held high in the air. It takes a second to register that Scott's hand is holding another hand aloft, and that that hand is Nancy's. By the time his brain has caught up to his eyes Ashley's boyfriend and their big-haired roommate Tiffany are standing in front of him holding Nancy's left hand accusingly out to him.

"Did you do this?!" Tiffany yelps, grabbing Nancy's wrist and shoving her forward a bit, thrusting her hand into his face.

He doesn't have to look down to see what they're talking about – he's the one who put it there, after all – so he looks at Nancy instead. She looks mortified and exasperated and, under it all, a little pleased. He sighs and shakes his head slightly at her. He can't believe neither of them thought about this before they left the house.

"Did I do what?" he says instead, affecting the most innocent tone he can.

"Don't play coy with us, Jonathan, is this real??" Tiffany lets go of Nancy and pokes him in the soft spot between his shoulder and chest instead. He winces and shies away a bit.

"Ow, don't do that. Yes, it's real."

"You _proposed_??" Tiffany has gone an odd shade of red and the room has gone quiet. Everyone seems to be looking at them now. It makes him feel hot under his collar, makes him shift awkwardly and clear his throat and that's when Nancy shakes off Scott's grip and steps over to his side, tucks herself under his arm.

"Yes," she answers and leans into him until some of the tension leaves his shoulders. "Yes, he did."

"Well fucking hell," Ashley says from just behind him and then there are half a dozen pairs of arms reaching for them, congratulations being shouted. He manages to keep Nancy's hand in his as they're bombarded by friends.

Someone shoves a shot into his hand, another into Nancy's, and there's a roaring toast that sounds like nonsense and their names, which thankfully drowns out his cough as the liquor burns its way down to his stomach.

It fills him with a strange kind of giddiness; he likes the friends they've collected in the last four years, but he didn't really think about how they might be _excited_ for them. It occurs to him that they probably want to be invited to the wedding. Somehow that's the most surreal realization of them all.

He's saying "thanks" and "we're really happy" automatically to the friends he values and the strangers who just overheard the news, and Nancy is letting her hand be pulled in every direction so girls can examine the ring, and it's all starting to feel very overwhelming when he feels a tug on his arm. He lets himself be pulled down the hallway, towards the door to the back stairwell and the roof deck. There are whistles and cheers and _assumptions_ behind them, but he ignores them in favor of following Nancy up into the fresh air.

His head immediately clears and he takes a deep, full breath, and god he loves her _so much_.

"Better?" she asks and he nods, pulling her into his arms and stepping back into a dark corner. There are people up here, they are not alone, but he kisses her anyway, long and deep.

"Thanks," he says when they part and leans his forehead against hers. "Think they're gonna be mad when they find out we got married without them?"

"Ah, fuck 'em," Nancy shrugs. "We can invite them to whatever we let my mom do. I don't need anyone but you."

+++

He takes her back to the secondhand store.

The same tall man is behind the counter, and he gives Jonathan the same once-over when he walks in. This time, though, the man's eyes go immediately to the girl at his side as she follows him in. She's already admiring the sundress on the mannequin.

The man introduces himself to Nancy as Chris, preens as she compliments his shop, his taste in jewelry, the way he helped Jonathan. She lets herself be taken from rack to rack as Chris piles dresses in her arms.

Jonathan folds himself into an upholstered chair with a handwritten price tag pinned to it and mentally starts shuffling their monthly budget so they don't starve.

"The ring looks good on her." Chris's voice startles him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, uh, thanks." He clears his throat, stands to get rid of the feeling the other man is looming over him.

"She asked me if I had anything for you. You weren't in here that long ago."

Jonathan follows him back over to the register and the glass case of jewelry beside it. "We've been together a long time. We don't, um, we don't really need to wait."

"How long's a long time?"  
  
"Five years," he answers with a shrug.

"Five and a half!" Nancy's voice floats over from the changing room near the back of the small shop. Jonathan smiles.

"Five and a half," he amends.

"High school sweethearts, huh?"

"Something like that."

"Well I hate to say it, but I don't really have much in the way of men's rings," Chris says, pulling out a few thick bands with strange black and green stones set in them. They look like pinkie rings from mafia movies. "You'd have better luck downtown."

"We don't really have a lot of money for this."

"There's a few good shops down there, run by good people; they'll give you a deal for a simple band. Here, I'll write them down, just tell 'em I sent you."

Jonathan watches him scribble out a few names and addresses, tapping his fingers on the glass nervously. They're supposed to go downtown for the license in just a few days anyway.

"Chris!"

He follows instinctively, until the older man lets out a low whistle and reaches back, stopping him with a hand to his chest.

"You stay over there," he instructs.

"Oh, don't be silly, we're just going—"

"Jonathan, go sit down," Nancy calls. He frowns.

"But—"

"Jonathan!"

"Fine, fine," he mutters and returns to the chair.

Nancy makes him cover his eyes as she pays.

+++

He's a patient guy but he's never been great at waiting in line.

The main hall of Chicago City Hall is beautiful; gilded, carved, painted with murals that recall renaissance ceilings. The office where they can get a marriage license, not so much.

Jonathan commandeers the Walkman while Nancy buries her face in a folder of papers. He stares at the informational posters on the dingy grey walls that outline what is and is not a valid form of identification and tries not to hum along to the music. After he's read them four times and they've only shuffled forward a foot he gives up and returns his attention to the woman beside him.

She's chewing on the cap of a ballpoint pen thoughtfully, still looking intently at the papers. He watches her write something, frown, scribble it out and write something else.

He pulls off his headphones and leans forward, trying to see better.

"What are you doing?

"Working on vows."

"Vows?"

"Yeah," She looks up, rolls her eyes at him. "You know, the things we say to each other when we get married?"

The line moves all of a sudden, and they shuffle forward another foot. He makes a face at her.

"I know what vows are."

"Right. So what's your question?"

"We're getting married at City Hall."

"I know, Jonathan," she says and it sounds like _idiot_. "They have vows here too."

"Really?"

"What exactly did you think was going to happen?"

"I dunno," he shrugs, hooks the headphones around his neck. "I thought a judge would have us fill out a form and we'd put on our rings and then they'd, like, say we're married."

Nancy purses her lips, looks like she's making a valiant effort not to laugh at him.

"We're filling out the form now, dummy," she finally gets out, and it's softer than he was expecting. Fonder. "And I guess it _could_ go that way, but there's usually vows to go with the ring exchange. Do you not want to do that?"

Truthfully, he didn't really think about it. He doesn't think there are words to encompass just how much he feels for her, and he's not the greatest talker, especially about his feelings. But he also knows there's no way Nancy is standing there with a folder full of options and a pen for editing because she _doesn't_ want vows, and he's not about to deny her anything she wants.

"No, vows are fine, they're fine," he reassures her and lets the warmth of her smile work its way into the center of his chest. "Lemme see."

"No way!" She turns, hugging the papers close to her chest. "They're a surprise."

"Nance, we're getting married at City Hall."

"What is with you and City Hall?" she wonders, and shuffles forward another foot. He briefly wonders if a clerk finally came back from break or something. "It's still our _wedding_. You can't see my dress, and you can't read my vows."

He has to clear his throat to tame the lump that suddenly appears there. Summons a joke to brush off the weight of the rush of emotion.

"I'll just steal 'em while you're sleeping."

She's about to tell him how annoying he is, he knows it, but the clerk calls "Next!" and, unexpectedly, next is them, and she has to let it drop for now.

He hands over his driver's license and $30 in cash and signs on the dotted line, and they're done in 10 minutes. He holds the piece of paper gently as they walk out, staring at it like a sacred item, until she plucks it out of his hand and slides it into her folder.

"You alright?" she asks softly as they step out into Daley Plaza. It's rained while they were inside, and while the sky is clear now the humidity in the air clings to his skin as they walk across the darkened pavement.

"It's a little surreal right?" he asks, sliding an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to his side. "We're going to get married in, like, what, four days?"

"Monday morning," she echoes softly. "You're good with that, right?"

"Of course." He looks down but only gets the top of her head. "Are you?" 

"Yes!" She looks up at him then. "I'm excited. But you've been quiet."

"I'm always quiet."

"You know what I mean."

"I don't, though. I'm excited, Nance. I'm excited and I'm also a little overwhelmed. But I don't think that's weird?"

"It's not," she tips her head onto his shoulder, taking the lead by picking up her pace. He's happy to follow as they pass the tall buildings on State Street, head for Wabash. "I just want to be sure."

"Sure that I'm sure?"

"Right."

"I'm the one who started this, you know."

"Oh, I know." They have to wait for a signal to change and she takes the opportunity to lift onto her toes, kiss his cheek. "Wanna make this weirder?"

"What do you mean?"

"Let's go buy our wedding rings."

A shiver runs down his spine, and not just because this is all costing a lot of money. It _is_ weird, just to hear her say it aloud. Something about this process makes him feel very, very young again.

"You're right, that's weird."

"But you're up for it?"

"Oh, always."

She leads them to a shop that Chris had directed them to, takes charge at the counter to find two slim, gold-plated bands. The jeweler measures their fingers, pulls out the rings for them to try on. The metal is cool but not cold when he slides it onto his left ring finger; the ring is heavier than he expected. It feels strange, uncomfortable, but as he considers it he feels it warm. Within minutes it barely feels like he's wearing anything at all.

They do get a deal, $60 for both. Nancy tucks the ring boxes into her purse. He's not sure he breathes normally the entire way home.

+++

"Do you want to be Mrs. Byers?"

The question slips out of him as they're watching television the evening before their wedding, each of them leaning on opposite arms of the sofa. Nancy's foot is resting on his thigh and he's kneading her ankle and calf with his fingertips. He can tell when he's hit a good spot because her toes wiggle.

"Hmm?"

"Are you taking my name?"

He's not sure where the question came from, exactly, and when he looks over at her she's got her eyebrows drawn together in thought.

"Hmm," she says again. "I don't know."

"We should probably know when we go in tomorrow."

"Do you want me to?"

"Honestly?" He waits until she meets his gaze to continue. "I didn't think about it until right now."

Her smile starts small then blooms, and it makes his heart do something funny in his chest. She shifts, tucking herself between the curve of his shoulder and the back of the couch, still looking up at him with a thoughtful grin.

"Neither did I. 'Mrs. Byers' sounds like your mom to me."

"Yeah, me too," he laughs, wrinkling his nose. Nancy taps her fingertips on his chest, contemplating.

"'Nancy Byers,'" she tries out. Repeats it a few times. "It's weird, but I guess I could get used to it."

"But?" He hears the word, hanging in the air between them.

"I dunno," she half-shrugs. "I always saw my byline as Nancy Wheeler, I guess."

"So keep your name."

"That wouldn't bother you?"

"No, I mean…" It's his turn to think about it, and he feels something rise in him, unbidden, words he meant to keep to himself a few years longer. "The only things is—our kids, we'd need to pick—"

"Our kids?" Her eyebrows fly up her forehead and he winces.

"Not _now_ , but later—"

"You've thought about us having kids?"

He wants to laugh, wants to shake his head and shake her, too. Wants to ask her why she hasn't. Wants to tamp down the sudden terror rising in him that they might be on different pages.

"Not any time _soon_ but like, someday. Haven't you?"

She's quiet as she leans her temple on the roundest part of his shoulder.

"A little but not really, not for real. I—there's so much I want to do first, you know? And Mike and El—all El talks about is having kids, having a family, it's _all_ she wants, and I get it, I really do, but it doesn't freak her out and it doesn't freak _Mike_ out even though they're only _18_ , and that freaks _me_ out. I'm only 22, Jonathan."

"I know, Nance. I don't want to have kids right now, either."

"But you want them someday."

"Yes."

"What if I don't?"

"I think," he takes a deep breath, moves until she has to sit up a little, has to look at him, "that we are getting _way_ ahead of ourselves. I'm not marrying you so we can start a family, I'm marrying you because I'm crazy about you and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be crazy about you 'til my dying day. We can figure out if we're gonna have kids later."

She looks worried, so desperately worried that he regrets ever bringing it up. It doesn’t matter, not now. They'll figure it out later. He has to bite back his words, has to clamp his teeth onto his tongue stop himself from asking if she still wants to go through with their plan in the morning.

"If you want to keep your name, keep it," he adds softly, trying to swallow the certainty he's ruined everything.

"Maybe," she says quietly after a minute, clears her throat and speaks a little louder next. "Maybe I can use Wheeler professionally and Byers legally. That way if—if we… you know, we'll all have the same name."

His heart skips a beat; he feels it. He wonders if she can feel it too, since she's still pressed against his chest.

"Okay," he breathes out. "Whatever you want, Nance. Really. I love you."

"I love you too," she replies instantly but there's a distracted note in her voice that doesn't make him feel better.

"Did I ruin it?" He has to force the words out, but they seem to snap her out of wherever she's gone. "Do you not want—"

"No! Jonathan, no, you didn't, you just—Doesn't it scare you?"

"Does what scare me?"

"The future." He must look confused because she shakes her head at him. "Marriage, kids, all that stuff. You talk about it so easily. _Think_ about it so easily. How do you do that?"

"I've got you," he shrugs. "Whatever happens, I've got you."

There's an odd look on her face; he's seen it before, when she feels overwhelmed. He's worried he made it worse, but then suddenly she's kissing him. He wraps his arms around her waist, pulls her tight against him.

"We're getting married tomorrow," she says against his lips.

He kisses her again, harder and deeper, doesn't pull away to reply, "Yeah. We are."

+++

Monday morning he is sure there are ants crawling under his skin and Nancy is refusing to come out of the bedroom.

"You're not supposed to see the bride before the wedding!" she calls through the door as he tugs at the collar of his dress shirt and the narrow black tie he's put on especially for her.

"Nance, we're getting married at City Hall and we have to _get there_ to get married so the wedding is kind of _now._ "

He's trying not to be cranky at her, it's their wedding day after all, but he slept terribly the night before, tossing and turning with anticipation and adrenaline, and it's _early_ , and the only thing that will make his headache worth it is that at the end of the day he'll be able to call her his wife, at least he will if she'll just _come out of the bedroom already_.

"Yeah, okay." Her voice is muffled through the wooden door. "Okay. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready, are you ready?"

"Yeah, Nance," he says and even he can hear how warm his voice is. "I'm ready."

The door creaks open and he almost faints.

She's not wearing anything elaborate. The white shift that ends mid-thigh has a vaguely 1960's feel, and looks more like a fancy, lacy sundress than a proper wedding dress. But it is white, and Nancy has pulled her hair up into a chignon and put on his favorite red lipstick, and for a moment his entire world tilts hard sideways. He braces one hand against the hallway wall and lets his brain scream at him to _breathe, dammit,_ until his lungs cooperate.

Nancy looks nervous, so nervous, and he wants to say something, _anything_ – that he loves her, that she's beautiful, that he can't believe this is happening – but the words all get stuck in his throat. And then suddenly the look on her face shifts, softens, and she reaches out to him. Her fingertips catch on the bottom of his tie.

"You put on a tie," she says quietly.

"I did." He's grateful to have some control of his vocal chords back, even though his voice is rough.

"You hate ties."

"But you don't."

"No, I think you look very dapper in a tie," she murmurs, almost to herself, and gives his a tug. That's all it takes, really, for him to be spurred back into action and before he knows it he's right in front of her, mouth on hers, his 'I love you' lost in her mouth.

She smacks his chest lightly, a silent admonishment for ruining her lipstick, just before snaking her arms up and around his neck as he pulls her tight against him. They have to leave, he knows they do – he's got designs on celebrating afterward so he's leaving his car, they have to walk to the train, they have to get downtown, they have to get in line. But she smells like flowers and Nancy and she has filled his mouth, his nose, his every sense with her, and if he could stay in her cocoon forever he thinks he'd happily die there.

She makes a noise into his mouth and he lets his hands wander down to the hem of her dress and then under and then up, trying to see just how many barriers will be in his way later (he hopes it's none), but suddenly she's smacking his hands, pushing him back, and he's left panting and _wanting_ with his back against the opposite wall.

"We have to get _married_ ," she reminds him, putting on a huffy, put-out tone like she's not also panting and flushed a foot away from him. He smirks at her and she smirks back and digs a tissue out the small purse he didn't even notice dangling from her elbow. "Here, you've got lipstick all over your mouth."

That doesn't help his smirk, not at all, and earns him another smack on the shoulder and a push towards the bathroom.

He's never been one for public displays of affection but he can't seem to keep his hands off her as they walk to the train, or on the train, pressing her into a back corner and dotting kisses down her neck. The other passengers are most certainly on their way to work, but they seem to have some clue of what they're up to because they choose to rather studiously ignore them in favor of making snide comments or rolling their eyes.

Well, except one middle-aged woman, hair in curlers and fingers stained yellow with cigarettes. She looks up from her magazine, gives them a long look up and down, then follows it with a rather aggressive thumbs-up and stare. She doesn't smile.

It takes effort he can feel, from both of them, not to laugh and to give her a thumbs-up in return.

Definitely one of the weirder L rides he's had in his life.

They're breathless, giggling and giddy as they go running across Daley Plaza, past businessmen and women grim-faced at the start of the workweek. He's not looking at any of them, not really, just the curve of Nancy's neck where it meets her shoulders, so he nearly knocks her over when she abruptly stops in front of him.

It takes him a moment to realize the three well-dressed figures standing before them are not strangers and are, in fact, the reason his almost-god-if-they-could-just- _get-into-City-Hall-_ wife has pulled up short.

Mike smirks at them both. "You didn't _really_ think you were gonna do this without anyone finding out, did you?"

"Wh-wha—" It takes Nancy a couple tries to get the words out. "What are you doing here?"

"We're witnessing your wedding," El says from beside him. "You need witnesses. Don't you? We're pretty sure you do."

"We don't, but…" Nancy trails off and he finishes her question without even thinking about it.

"How did you know we would be here?"

"It was on your calendar," Will pipes up. When both of them gape at him he rolls his eyes. "Today was circled in red and Nancy wrote _get married_ next to it, you think I wouldn't notice?"

Will has been over twice for dinner and one just to hang out since they got engaged. He never noticed his little brother checking his calendar, but then they keep it on the kitchen wall next to the phone. The phone that Will comfortably answers if he's busy, because they're brothers.

Jonathan feels, well, kinda dumb. And all he can do is sort of blink as Nancy gapes.

"Well shit," she mutters. "I didn't even think about that."

"So we both agree this is your fault," he grins. She punches his shoulder, exasperated but not angry.

"You trying to get left at the altar?"

Will interrupts before they can get too far off track.

"You didn't say what time, though, so we just got here really early." He pauses, looks hard at Jonathan for effect. " _Really_ early."

"Do you have, like, an appointment?" Mike chimes in. "Are you late?"

"No, it's sort of a first come first serve thing," Nancy answers. They move as one, stepping towards, their siblings, and it breaks the standoff. Eleven steps forward and opens her arms and he lets himself be embraced by his sort-of-little-sister. Her grip is tight and warm, and he can't help but smile. When he lets her go she does the same to Nancy, who has just released Mike.

"So we should go in, is what you're saying." Will takes his turn to hug first Nancy and then Jonathan.

Jonathan feels his hair move as his little brother whispers in his ear, "You're lucky, both of you. Also idiots. You deserve each other."

"Thanks," he murmurs as he lets Will go and steps back to observe their little group, addresses them as a whole. "Yes, we should go in. And, uh, thanks. For coming. "

Mike and Will stand up a little straighter, tugging on their jackets, and El smoothes down her skirt. Nancy takes his hand, her grip firm and steady, and smiles up at him.

"Okay," she says. "Let's get married."


	3. part three

They are stuffed into a taxi, Nancy on his lap in the front seat while Mike and El and Will are in the back, because their siblings have insisted they go out to celebrate. He's not hungry – he hasn't had breakfast but that doesn't matter, his entire body, his soul, feels full, full, full – but they insisted and he and Nancy are in no position to argue.

They're really in no position to do anything at all, because all he seems to be able to do is either smile dreamily at the ring on his hand or smile dreamily at his wife.

His _wife_.

He wonders if anyone just recorded the ceremony. He should have thought of that. He thought he heard the click of a camera, is pretty sure Will at least took pictures. But he should have thought to have someone record it.

It had been short, so very short, a whirlwind of smiles and promises and Nancy trying not to cry and him trying to remember how to speak and a slightly amused county clerk finally saying he could kiss her. There had been whoops and cheers from their siblings, and paperwork to sign, and the feel of a gold band, heavier than he remembered, on his left hand.

If they had been alone, he thinks he probably would have dragged Nancy into the nearest supply closet to immediately consummate this new marriage. He supposes it's for the best the younger trio immediately demanded ice cream.

His right arm is crossed over Nancy's lap, hand on her hip to keep her secure in the cab, but their left hands are stacked so that both their rings are side be side and he has no idea what is being said in the back seat because he can't take his eyes off them.

If he flips their hands there will be matching scars on the palms, light as can be and only really visible if you're looking.

Nancy must be thinking the same thing because she does flip her hand. He follows. He'll always follow her.

The feel of her fingertip tracing his scar with a feather-light touch sends a shiver from head to toe.

Their hands shook when he slid the ring onto her finger, when she did the same to him. And when the clerk said they could kiss, she had looked up at him, eyes as big and blue as ever, and whispered, _On three. One, two…_

"Three," he whispers now, and her hand grabs his, threading their fingers together tightly.

"I love you," she whispers in his ear in return.

"Bear traps," Mike sighs. "Why is it always bear traps with you guys?"

"Bear traps and baseball bats," Will adds. "No one knows what that _means_."

"That's 'cuz it's none of your business," Nancy answers, moving her mouth away from his ear.

"But you put it on your vows."

"It was just supposed to be _us_ ," she shakes her head. "Those vows were for _us_ , not _you._ "

"That'll be $12.50," the cab driver chimes in and only then does Jonathan realize they've stopped.

The younger trio is already spilling out of the backseat and darting towards Margie's Candies, leaving Nancy to climb off his lap and Jonathan to dig around in his pocket until he can find his wallet.

"Hey!" Nancy calls after their brothers, but they're already inside. She sighs. "I feel like we shouldn't have to pay the cab fare on our wedding day?"

Jonathan takes her hand, accepting her help out of the car, and gives the taxi driver a little wave as he offers another 'congratulations' and drives off.

"I feel like we shouldn't be getting ice cream sundaes with our little brothers on our wedding day but," he glances around them, spies the large statue of an ice cream cone in front of the shop, tugs Nancy behind it. Presses her up against the ceramic, "here we are."

He doesn't let her reply, kisses her instead and feels her smile against his mouth as she winds her arms around his neck. He's not sure how much weight the statue can support but he presses her into it nonetheless, sliding one of his thighs between her legs and pulling her tight against him until she lets out a little squeak. Her hands leave his neck, slide down over his chest and around his waist, sending the most delicious tingles up his spine. He can feel them slide lower, are about to settle onto his rear, when suddenly there are three sharp raps on glass from behind them.

They separate abruptly. He turns his head, feels Nancy tighten her grip on his waist as she look over his shoulder. There is a window. A large window, right behind them And in it are their brothers and El. Mike and Will have a hand clapped over their eyes, but El is looking right at them, eyebrows lifted in amusement. She gives a small wave then jerks her thumb behind her. Jonathan follows her direction and sees an older woman with a small baby, staring at them in shock.

When he looks back at El she's turning pink with the effort of not laughing.

"Oh no," he groans as he drops his forehead onto Nancy's shoulder. She pets his head softly, fingers gentle in his hair. "I can't go in there now. Please, Nance, don't make me."

"I think we might have to." She gives him a rueful grin when he lifts his head to look at her. "They stranded us on the West Side."

He groans again but carefully steps back from her, takes her hand and lets her lead him inside. The employees don't look ruffled or wary when they enter, just give them a smile and let them pass. El is turned around in her seat, speaking to the scandalized group behind them, and as they approach Jonathan hears her say, "They just got married."

The woman's eyebrows stay raised and the best they can do is offer her sheepish smiles.

"Look," Nancy says, sliding into the booth as the boys start to debate which absurdly large sundae to order. "We love you guys. We're really glad you're here. But we do _not_ want to spend our day in an ice cream shop, okay?"

"Whatever," Mike says, waving a hand to brush her off. "We have to be back at your place soon anyway."

Jonathan's eyes narrow at that, and Nancy leans in across the table.

"What does that mean?"

All three of them briefly freeze until Mike shakes his head.

"I just mean I told Mom last night we'd be at your place by one and she said she'd call to make sure we got here okay," he answers, but there's a hitch in his voice that Jonathan thinks sounds like lying. He narrows his eyes further but Mike stares steadily back at him. "I mean, how long does it take to eat ice cream anyway?"

Nancy purses her lips and leans against him, studying her younger brother carefully. Her fingers tap on his thigh, contemplative. Jonathan watches Will closely, then El, but they're back to arguing over ice cream. When he looks back at Mike the younger boy's shoulders are relaxed but his posture is straight, proper. He doesn't trust it, not at all.

When he turns to look at Nancy she's already looking back at him, the same suspicion in her eyes. He offers a tiny shrug with one shoulder – what can they do, after all. The kids seem determined to keep whatever secret they have for now. Plus, he figures, if they can just get themselves back to their apartment then Jonathan can grab the bottle of champagne in their fridge and lock him and Nancy in their bedroom, and it doesn't matter _what_ the kids have in mind, he can go back to his plan for the rest of the afternoon.

She seems to catch his meaning and grins.

"Fine," she says, turning back to their brothers. "I want a banana split."

The shop writes "Just Married" on the ice cream with chocolate sauce and when their siblings make them feed each other bites like a wedding cake, Jonathan has to admit it feels rather nice.

He insists Will hand over his camera, after a short argument about whether or not it's even his camera ("Mom said you said I could have it," Will argues. "But it's still _mine_ , now give it here," he retorts and holds out his hand), then focuses less on eating and more on documenting what's happening around him. He gets shots of Will and Mike mirroring each other, cheeks distended with ice cream and guilty looks on their faces, El's wide eyes when her sundae arrive with an Eggo crowning it, the soft smile on Nancy's face as she looks at their family and tries not to let them see how happy she is.

He thinks about turning the camera around, pulling her close and taking a self-portrait of them as a newly married couple, but the booths are small and he wants to get home. He doesn't protest when Will takes it back.

When they're done eating Mike insists on hailing the cab for them, promising he'll pay for this ride, apologizing for the last one. Jonathan wraps his arms around Nancy's waist from behind, leaning on her as he tries to settle the churning, slightly nauseous feeling of ice cream in his otherwise empty stomach.

This time when the cab pulls over at the curb, Mike and Will let Nancy and Jonathan climb into the back seat. Nancy presses close to his side as he leans his forehead against the cool glass of the driver's side window. He closes his eyes and feels her hand come to rest on his stomach, moving in slow circles, and her cheek come to rest on his shoulder.

Their street is quiet on a Monday afternoon, their neighbors gone at work. Nancy leans heavily on him after they climb out of the cab, wraps her arms around his neck once more. He presses his forehead against hers, lets her face go out of focus in their closeness.

"I love you," she murmurs and he feels her breath against his lips as she speaks.

He's about to reply when an unexpected voice sends his head flying back up.

"Alright, what the fuck is going on," Steve snaps from where he's sitting on their stoop. "Little Wheeler called me and told me to be here at 12:30 sharp with a case of champagne and I've been sitting her for almost _half an hour_."

"Hey!" Mike protests his nickname.

Nancy whips around. Steve's eyes narrow at them.

"Why are you so dressed up?" He stands and starts to walk slowly towards him. "You're wearing a tie, dude. You never wear ties. What is going on?"

He rounds on Nancy next. "And you. You're wearing… You're… No. Oh, you have got to be _fucking_ kidding me."

He stops just short of them, less than a foot away, glaring hard with hands on hips. Distantly, Jonathan hears the release of the shutter behind Steve.

"Show me," he says in his best cop voice, snapping his fingers at them. "Both of you, left hands, now."

Jonathan hates that voice. He has gone toe to toe with Steve Harrington for half a decade now, delighting in teasing and annoying him at every turn, but when he turns on his cop voice Jonathan can't help but do as he says. He glares back as he holds up his hand, feels Nancy do the same beside him.

"You assholes," Steve shakes his head and takes a step closer, throwing one arm around each of them and hugging them close. "You shitheads, you didn't even _invite_ me??"

"To be fair, we didn't invite them either," Jonathan says, his voice muffled in Steve's shoulder as he pats him on the back in return.

"Wait, you didn't?" Steve steps back, begins to walk backwards towards their building where Will, Mike and El are waiting at their front door, cardboard box in Mike's hands.

Nancy shakes her head, digging in her purse for keys. Jonathan takes her hand, pulls his from his pocket, and moves to open the door.

"Nope," she answers as he leads their small crew inside. "Will figured it out."

Steve snickers at that, following them up the stairs, but pauses on the top step. "Hold on. You didn't tell your parents about this, did you?"

"Uh," Nancy says, stopping as well. "No. We did not."

"Oh my god," Steve breathes. A wide smile blooms on his face. "Oh my god, you're gonna have to tell _your mom_. Oh Nancy Wheeler—or is it Byers now? Is it Byers? No, no, nevermind, that's not important right now. Nancy Wheeler, I demand a front row seat to this phone call. Oh, I cannot _wait!_ "

He brushes past Jonathan gleefully, yelling instructions for chilling the champagne into the kitchen. Nancy comes to a stop in front of Jonathan, looking up at him in horror. He looks back down at her, wide-eyed.

He's not sure they did such a poor job of thinking ahead since the first time they went looking for a monster from another dimension.

"Whoops?" he tries. Nancy snorts out a laugh, grabs his tie, and pulls him inside.

+++

Steve calls Ben and Michelle, calls Ashley and Scott, but no one picks up.

"Where the hell is everyone?" He leans against the living room wall and Jonathan raises an eyebrow at him, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his collar as he drops onto the sofa.

"It's Monday. They're at work, like normal people."

"What are you implying, Byers?"

"I'm not implying _anything_ ," Jonathan answers with a smirk. "Freaks and weirdos only."

Steve huffs again and turns away, apparently done with him for the moment. "Nance! Where's your address book??"

He pushes past Nancy as she's exiting the kitchen with a juice glass of champagne in each hand and an amused look on her face.

"What's he doing?" she asks as she hands Jonathan a glass, clinking her rim lightly against his. He takes a sip before answering

"Trying to throw us a party."

"I'd settle for a nap."

"God," he places his glass on the coffee table and opens his arms so she can settle in his lap, yawning as she does. "Tell me about it."

"Does your stomach still hurt?"

"It's been like twenty minutes, Nance. It still hurts." He tightens his grip on her when she tries to get back up. "Hey wait, where are you going?"

"I'm not gonna sit here if your stomach hurts, it's just gonna make it more upset—"

"No, no, stop, stay here," he laughs, holding tight as she tries to wiggle out of his arms and not spill her champagne at the same time. She takes a large gulp and reaches past him to set it down, tries to break free that way.

In the end they wriggle and shuffle together until he's on his back on the sofa and she's laying on top of him, nose to nose and toes to toes. Only then does she give a heavy sigh and go still.

"You're so stubborn," she laughs and tucks her face into the crook of his neck. He presses his cheek to her hair.

"It's nice, you're warm." He lets out another sigh and closes his eyes. He can hear Steve and Will arguing about something in the kitchen but it's the kind of soft, distant noise that helps him drift a little further into sleep.

Nancy is humming something into his jaw, a song he recognizes but only at the increasingly fuzzy fringes of his dozing consciousness, when Mike's voice interrupts their far too brief quiet.

"Oh, not this again."

"Shut up, Mike," Nancy snaps back automatically, but it's muffled in his neck. Jonathan chuckles and cracks an eye open to see Mike standing with his own glass of champagne looking down at them, exasperated.

"You guys are _so weird_. Why do you have to be this weird? El and I have been dating almost as long as you have and we're not this weird."

Nancy's head pops up, almost catching him in the cheek. "I'm sorry, are you telling me your telekentic girlfriend is less weird than my taking a nap with my boyfriend?"

"Husband," Jonathan corrects automatically. When he opens his eyes she's staring down at him with the kind of affection that makes his heart do somersaults in his chest.

"Husband," she repeats softly.

"You're not taking a nap with him you're taking a nap _on_ him," Mike retorts, dropping into an armchair. "Who sleeps _on_ another person? Fucking weird."

Jonathan opens his mouth to defend himself, but is interrupted by the click of his stereo, the sound of a tape being put on. Will is behind Mike now, turning up the volume, whatever argument with Steve he was just having forgotten or

What comes out of the speakers is soft, jazz instrumentation and a woman's voice.

"Etta James?" Mike asks, surprised, but before Jonathan can answer Nancy is up on her forearms, her elbows dangerously close to pressing into a soft and sensitive part of his torso.

"I know this tape," she says and looks down at him with a smile. "You gave this to me for Valentine's Day, '88 because it was our first Valentine's Day living together, but you didn't make it here."

He grins back. "No, I made it at Murray's. It was the first time we went back since… you know. So I raided his records while you two were talking about newspapers and stuff."

Her hair has come loose from her chignon and he lifts a hand to brush it out of her eyes, remembering the look on her face when she'd first played the tape. She had been so confused, had gone running over to their crates of records, boxes of tapes to figure out where he'd pulled the songs from.

She purses her lips at him. "'And stuff.' Rude. That was my career we were talking about. My _life_."

"You're my life," he murmurs and it makes her blush, which makes him grin, and makes their siblings groan again.

"You know what," Nancy snaps, pushing herself up a little more and now she does catch him in that spot under his ribs and he grunts, "we just got _married_ so how 'bout you take those ews somewhere else and give us some _alone time_ , eh?"

"No can do, no can do, Nance, we've got a party to throw," Steve interjects as he strolls back into the room. "I have reached your friends at work and instructed them to get their asses over here as soon as they are finished, and also for them to finish up ASAP so let's get up and get you into party mode."

Jonathan and Nancy groan in unison, Jonathan grunting once more as Nancy flops back down onto his chest.

"We were gonna take a nap," she whines, face back in the crook of his neck. Jonathan nods enthusiastically in agreement, closing his eyes again as a demonstration. "We got up _so early_."

"It was your choice to elope in your own damn town."

"Yeah, and eloping usually means _no parties—_ "

"Let them sleep." Eleven's voice is soft and kind but authoritative. Jonathan opens his eyes, looks at the young woman who holds so much power under her skin. She's smiling fondly at him, standing at Mike's side with a hand on his shoulder. "We have to go get stuff anyway. We need snacks and decorations. You don't even have _balloons_."

Jonathan can't help but bark laughter at that, his voice clear and loud echoing around the room.

"Why would we have balloons?"

"For _parties_ ," she answers, rolling her eyes like he's an idiot as she scoops up her purse and pulls Mike from his seat. His half-drunk glass of champagne is set down on the table, forgotten. Jonathan's pretty sure Nancy will be irritated they wasted the first bottle of champagne later.

He wants to retort but she's herding Will and Mike towards the door, Steve following behind gulping down his champagne and griping about _all the shit you little assholes put me through_.

"We'll be back in an hour!" El tosses over her shoulder as the door closes behind them.

They've both gone half-sitting in an effort to follow the sudden flurry of movement, yet another unexpected turn of events.

"Okay, goodbye then," Nancy sighs and shifts for real, carefully pushing herself up until she can climb off him and offering him a hand. "C'mon, let's nap before they come back and bring all our friends with them."

He lets her pull him to his feet, detours around her to turn the volume on the stereo up another couple of notches so the music can be heard from their bed. He sheds his suit jacket in the hallway, hanging it on one of the hooks typically reserved for actual coats, and undoes the buttons at his cuffs. Beside him Nancy pulls the pins from her hair and lets it down.

Their room is pleasantly dark in the afternoon, the bed sloppily made in their morning rush and so inviting. The cocktail of sleepiness and a dozen emotions in his blood and Billie Holiday's voice drifting through the apartment pull him up short just outside their bedroom doorway.

"What?" Nancy asks, stopping beside him. "Jonathan?"

He doesn't speak, just turns to her and scoops her up in a bridal hold before she can protest. Her arms fly around his shoulders to steady herself and she laughs in his ear.

"You're so _corny_ ," she giggles as he carries her across the threshold and into his room. "I'm gonna tell everyone you did this."

"You're gonna ruin my reputation," he argues, smiling at her as she presses her forehead to his. "And then you'll just be married to some big softie instead of the cool, mysterious, brooding photographer. Then what will you do?"

"Oh so you're worried about _my_ street cred?" she laughs as he sets her down beside the bed.

"Yeah, totally." He moves away to toe off his shoes, shed his formal clothes in order to get in bed, but her hand catches his tie and pulls him back.

"Jonathan," she says again, and her eyes are as blue and deep as any ocean, and he is lost to her current.

He thinks she means to say more but his lips get there first, and she doesn't seem to mind.

In the end they're asleep barely fifteen minutes before the sound of the door and voices pull them back into the waking world.

+++

There is no calm, no quietly basking in the glow of the step they've just taken, but perhaps, Jonathan thinks, this is better.

He's known Steve can throw a party at a moment's notice, but he thinks he should consider teaming up with El more often. Together they have a flair that reminds him of his new mother-in-law.

They take their time emerging from their room, figuring they've earned it, and when they do they find the apartment ceiling covered with silver balloons. There are a couple large pizzas on the kitchen table, and trays of party snacks on the counters.

El admonishes them for changing out of what passed for their wedding finery, even as Mike and Will emerge from his dark room wearing jeans and t-shirts themselves, and Steve threatens to go out and buy him one of those t-shirts that looks like a tuxedo.

That leads to a solid five minutes of him telling Steve, his younger brother, and his new wife to shut up as they all loudly encourage the older man to do exactly that.

"This is not happening," he insists, finally dropping onto a chair in the kitchen. "I will run down the block naked before I put on a tuxedo shirt, am I making myself clear? And why are you all ganging up on me, Nancy's not wearing her wedding dress."

"But I'm wearing _a_ dress," she points out. It's true; she's wearing the blue sundress she was wearing when he proposed to her. He wonders if it's intentional and almost forgets to glare at her. "Also, when are you running down the block naked? Do we have time to grab the camera--"

He cuts her off with an offended noise. She settles in his lap, cooing fake apologies and peppering loud kisses on his cheeks as he tries to bat her away when the front door opens and a woman's voice interrupts them.

"I heard a rumor," Michelle calls out as she and Ben round the corner and stand in the kitchen doorway, "that you two _got married today_ without _telling anyone_."

"And yet here you are, knowing about it somehow," Nancy quips primly, grinning at the couple. Jonathan pats her hip to get her to stand and accepts the hugs that immediately envelope them.

"You know, we invited you to _our_ wedding," Ben admonishes, clapping him hard on the back as he lets go. Jonathan coughs slightly from the impact.

"We were gonna do something _eventually_ ," he says with a shrug. "Just after."

"I'm choosing to not be insulted," Michelle says as she swaps places with her husband. "I hope you know how much effort that takes."

"I do, I do," Jonathan laughs, giving her a squeeze. "We appreciate you not holding it against us."

"Look at you," Michelle sighs, pulling back and ruffling his hair like he's a little kid. "All grown up and _married_."

He sighs and makes a face at her as everyone around him starts to snicker. He's about to say something when the door opens again and Scott's booming voice cuts through the chatter in the kitchen.

"Wheeler!!"

Nancy's eyes widen and her mouth forms a perfect O of surprise. She takes a step closer to him, angling her body halfway behind his. He reaches back with a hand and pats her hip comfortingly.

But when the young man Nancy met and befriended during her transfer orientation rounds the corner he's not angry, just clearly exasperated. He surveys the room as his girlfriend joins him and sighs.

"We're all incredibly offended that we weren't invited to this wedding, right? Ok, good, great," he offers to the room, and that's all it takes to get everyone talking again.

Jonathan feels a bit like he's in the eye of a storm. He hugs Scott, hugs Ashley, steps aside so they can hug Nancy, get a slice of pizza, say hello to the familiar faces in the room.

He watches Nancy and Scott talk softly, seriously, heads close together. Scott's probably the closest friend Nancy has at Northwestern; they met her first day of classes and have stuck together ever since. He worries for a moment – for the first time really – if they may have done some damage to their friendships, even their relationships with their parents.

He didn't really think about it, think about anything beyond how much he wanted to call Nancy is wife, how much he wanted to set it in writing, in proverbial stone, before any number of things – from the weird to the dangerous to the mundane – could get in the way. He didn't think about how his friends would feel, his brother, his mother. He wonders what this would have felt like if Will hadn't seen Nancy's note on the calendar, hadn't though to call Mike and El, to get Steve up here. Would it feel more intimate? Or would it just feel oddly lonely?

Scott envelopes Nancy in a tight hug and he watches her squeeze him back in return for a long moment before letting him go and shoving him towards the fridge with a wide grin, telling him to get a drink, help himself, no really, help himself there's _so much_ booze in their house now.

It wouldn't feel right, Jonathan decides, without all of them here. A powerful feeling of thankfulness washes over him as Nancy slips her arm loosely around his waist once more and they lean back against the counter.

"You alright?" she murmurs. He grins down at her.

"Yeah. It's nice having everyone here, isn't it?"

"It is," she admits, rolling her eyes a little. "We can't tell them that, though. They'll get all cocky." 

"Oh, never."

He leans down to brush a kiss over her lips, is about to suggest herding their friends out of their small kitchen and into the living room when Mike clears his throat.

"I'd like to make a toast." Time seems to overlap; Mike's voice is deep but he sounds as nervous as he did when he was 13 and lying to his parents about hiding a girl in his basement. He lifts his juice glass of champagne and turns towards them, looking first at Jonathan, then Nancy. "Even though I had to be the one to call you out for lying about your feelings for Jonathan six years ago—"

"That is _not_ what happened!" Nancy interjects.

The younger boy smirks and presses on. "I'm glad you two found each other. And even if that means you keep buying each other baseball bat charms and making bear trap jokes that no one else understands for the rest of your lives—"

"No, I get it. Come on, dude, we've explained it to you before—" Steve jumps in but Mike plows on.

"—we'll all deal with your stupid inside jokes because we love you and we're really happy for you. I'm lucky to have a sister like you, Nance. I don't think I ever said that before, but it's true. And I know you don't need me, or Jonathan, to look out for you but I'm glad you have him. So cheers to you."

Jonathan has to bite his lip to tamp down his smile and Nancy's fingers are digging into his waist as she reaches for Mike, puling him into a half hug before joining the rest of them in sipping her champagne.

"If I could add," Will pipes up, "Jonathan and I had a rough time growing up. It was always sort of you and me and mom against the world, until there was Nancy. I know the way you came into our family was… different, let's put it that way, but I'm still proud of my scar and I'm still glad you're the one who gave it to me. So, cheers. And I'll still destroy you if you ever hurt my brother, he's the best."

Jonathan hugs Will quickly, glancing over his shoulder to check on their friends from Chicago. They look confused.

Steve raises his glass next, steps into the center of the informal circle they've formed in the kitchen. "I believe it's now my turn to toast the marriage of my ex-girlfriend and the guy who stole her away from me—"

"Okay," Jonathan interrupts. "That's not what happened."

"I was just an innocent teenager, blissfully in love with the young, beautiful Nancy Wheeler, when this strange, admittedly pretty handsome, weirdo at school swooped in—"

"It's been six years, man, you gotta get let it go."

"—like some undercover Lothario to whisk her away to a conspiracy theorist's bunker—"

"That was my idea," Nancy adds. "I was the one who came up with the plan for the lab."

"—and woo her in the darkest hours of the night—"

Nancy looks up at him, crinkles her nose, "You know, if that's what he thinks wooing is we were doomed from the start."

"Yeah," Jonathan agrees. "I didn't woo you until later, and I made sure there were no conspiracy theorists involved."

"But there was vodka." She winks. He hopes he's not blushing.

"Well, I mean…"

"And when you got back to Hawkins it was already too late, she was determined to stay by your side to save your brother while the rest of us went after the vines—"

"What the fuck are you talking about, man?" Ben's interruption is directed at Steve. All four of their friends from Chicago look hopelessly, desperately lost.

"Inside joke," Will tries to deflect.

"Steve," Nancy interjects firmly, but there's a wary note in her voice. "Be serious or shut up."

"Oh lighten up, Nance," Steve chuckles, but his expression turns thoughtful. "You know, years ago, after everything, when I was still hurt and still angry, Dustin asked me if I hoped you two would break up quickly or stay together forever, like which one would be most satisfying as your ex-boyfriend. And I told him it wasn't up to me and I thought you two deserved each other. I didn't mean it in a nice way at the time, but I also think I was right. I've always known you're brilliant, Nance, and we've become close, Jonny Boy—"

"Don't call me that."

"Shh, I’m being sincere. My point is, you're both good on your own, but together you're great. You're bigger and better than yourselves, and I think that's the dream, right? That's what we're all hoping to find and you found it when we were just teenagers. You're lucky, Nance. Both of you. So lucky. And I hope you stay lucky, stay strong, stay together. The monsters and the bad men have no chance against the two of you."

Will, Mike and El burst into applause and cheers at the end of that, and even though their Chicago friends still look perplexed they join in as glasses clink and Steve steps over to them for yet another hug.

As they embrace Eleven starts ushering the group out of the kitchen and into the living room, handing bottles of champagne to Mike and Will, passing a pizza to Ashley as well. Jonathan watches them shuffle out, pressing himself against the counter, listening to Ben and Will start to argue over what music to put on next, listening to Michelle compliment El on the decorations, to Scott asking Mike how his first year of college went. When Queen comes on the stereo, too loud for a Monday night but he doesn't care, he knows Steve and Will have teamed up to win control of the stereo.

His thoughts are interrupted when Nancy places her hands on his shoulders, rises onto her tiptoes, and smiles widely at him as she moves their faces close together.

"Jonathan Byers," she says, "I'm going to get you drunk tonight."

He smiles back.

+++

Jonathan wakes up with a pounding head and a mouth that feels stuffed with cotton. He groans, pulling Nancy's pillow over his head to block out the light filtering in through his bedroom curtain. When there is no protest, no yelp of indignation and smack of a hand against his chest, he lifts the pillow and cracks one eye open. His vision is blurry but he can see the empty space next to him clearly enough.

Fuck. If Nancy's up he should get up. It probably means it's late. He can't remember if he has work that day, if he has a job. He hopes he doesn't. He hopes if he does it's just the bar and he can call in sick.

As he pushes himself upright, room spinning slightly, he also vows not to let Nancy get him drunk again until at least their fifth anniversary.

He almost trips on his jeans as he clambers out of bed, barely manages to remember to pull on a t-shirt because there are other people in their apartment. He pads slowly down the hallway, one hand on the wall for support.

The door to their second bedroom is still closed. He vaguely remembers the end of the night, their siblings saying they'd share the bed between the three of them, leaving the sofa for Steve. They'd stayed up long after their friends had left, none of them burdened with work the next day, trying to finish as many bottles of champagne as they could.

He feels a sharp pang of regret for that, and a horrible rolling in his stomach.

When he enters the kitchen Nancy is sitting at the table with her head in her hands and Steve is sitting across from her with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Morning, Byers!" Steve booms, standing to pour him a cup of coffee.

"Shh!" Jonathan hisses, dropping down in the chair next to Nancy. She doesn't look up. "What the fuck, Steve."

"Look at you two lovebirds. This is how you start a marriage, right? With love, devotion, and matching hangovers." Steve sets the mug down in front of him. It takes all he has in him to keep from retching on the spot.

"How are you so goddamn chipper?"

"Oh, my head is pounding Jonno, don't get me wrong, but I've got something to look forward to."

There's a thunk and Jonathan raises his head to see the old JVC, Bob's old one he's had since… well, on the table. Nancy groans softly beside him and he manages to lift a hand, rub circles on her back.

"Oh ho ho, I do believe it is time for our girl Nance to call her mom."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took six weeks to write. i couldn't tell you why, and i could also write an essay on why. i appreciate your patience. i hope you liked it. 
> 
> there is one more part coming, an epilogue. i can never estimate the lengths of my stories correctly on the first try.


	4. part four

Jonathan's not sure who's going to kill him first, Nancy or her mother, but the certainty of his impending doom does nothing to stop the laughter bubbling out of him.

"Jonathan, stand up straight," Karen Wheeler growls out the corner of her mouth. It doesn't help.

"If you could all just hold still a moment," the photographer tries but it has the opposite effect. He doubles over, clutching his stomach with one hand, the other slipping further down Nancy's waist to her hip. On his other side his mother elbows him sharply in the back.

"I'm sorry," he tries. "I'm so sorry I just—I just need a minute."

He feels Nancy step away from him, hears his mother sigh and apologize to Karen. Karen, who is exasperatedly apologizing to the photographer and promising him they'd be ready in just a moment.

"Get yourself together," Joyce says in his ear. Beside her he can hear Will snickering. He giggles again.

"Jonathan," Nancy sighs and he looks up at her. Her hair is curled and teased into a style he can only described as large, and a lace headband cuts through the 'do to keep the veil on the back of her head. The rest of her is swallowed up by a combination of lace and silk that truly defies gravity.

And it just sets him off once more. 

Nancy's kick to his shin is firm enough to grab his attention but not enough to hurt. As he wipes the tears from the corners of his eyes and tries to draw in deep, full breaths to calm himself he can hear her complaining to Karen for the millionth time that day about the dress choice. About how it wasn't her choice, it isn't her dress, her dress is _upstairs_ and can't she just go change into it so they can take their pictures?

Karen was hurt, truly hurt, when they called to tell her they'd gotten married at City Hall. Screeching shock had given way to tears, and through their hangovers they'd apologized and apologized, promised to let her throw whatever celebration she wanted, promised to do it all over again in her backyard so they could all be involved. Even Steve had eventually left the kitchen, given them some space to make it right.

His mom had just sighed and instructed him to develop the pictures Will had taken _immediately_ and send a set home. He'd practically felt the roll of her eyes through the telephone line.

The Wheelers' backyard is as decked out as he had ever seen it; white lacy streamers hanging from the trees, tables set with silver and white and huge bouquets of flowers. It is filled with mostly Nancy's family and the Wheelers' friends, with his mom and Will gamely chatting with them all, accepting their congratulations, defending what they keep calling their "alternative lifestyle."

And it had all been going fine, been going smoothly, until Nancy had emerged in Karen's chosen wedding dress, her face painted with horror and trepidation. He hadn't been able to keep a straight face since.

"Are you finished?" Nancy asks with a sigh and he keeps his eyes carefully trained on the ground.

"I think as long as I don't look directly at you I'll make it."

"Nice, that's real nice," she snips at him but calls to her mother anyway. Jonathan carefully moves himself back into the posed arrangement, keeps his gaze steadily above her head as Karen calls the photographer back. The mirth hasn't fully left him, though, and his grin stretches much wider than it typically would.

"Well at least he'll be smiling," Karen murmurs through her own grin.

It's only Nancy's _shut up_ , hissed through her teeth, that keeps him from making a face and ruining the photo.

+++

They refuse to repeat their vows, but give in to doing just about everything else.

Karen leads them around the backyard from table to table as catering is laid out, insisting they speak with every guest. He keeps his hand firm on Nancy's back.

The sun is beginning to set when Nancy sneaks off, slips back into the house. With her gone he makes a beeline to the corner of the yard he's been eyeing since they emerged afternoon, the small, empty table and the blonde sitting there, working intently.

She looks up when he drops into one of the empty seats beside her and gives her a grin.

"Hey, Holly."

"Hi, Jonathan." She smiles back and sets her crayon aside, turning to him.

"Having fun?"

"More than you, I think." She grins in a way that makes her look just like Nancy and he resists the urge to reach over and ruffle her hair. She's too old for that now, protests when he tries.

"Is it that obvious?"

She nods solemnly and he laughs again, reaching up to loosen his bowtie. He's always liked Holly and Holly's always liked him; they're cut from the same cloth he thinks, quiet and observant and more than happy to stay out of the spotlight. She's been at this little table practically the whole time except for when they were taking pictures. He's a little jealous, to be honest.

Holly's the only one of the Wheeler children who stayed blonde, and her hair glints orange in the sunset as she looks closely at him. She and Nancy have the same eyes.

"So you're my brother now."

"Brother-in-law."

"Because you're married to Nance." It's not a question, but her eyes are searching.

"Yeah, because we're married."

She hmphs softly. "So you can't marry me."

Jonathan bites back his grin. He's known Holly has had something like a crush on him for years now; not an honestly romantic thing, she's far too young for that, but a certain kind of clinginess that goes beyond just thinking her sister's boyfriend is cool.

"You're awfully young to get married."

"Nuh-uh! I'm big."

"You're only 10."

"That's old! Double digits!"

"Still seems a little young to me."

She huffs again and worries her lip a moment, looking even more like her older sister. A thought crosses his mind, unasked for and unstoppable: if he and Nancy ever have a daughter, will she look like Holly? Will she have Nancy's eyes and that golden blonde hair that seems to run recessive on both sides of their family, her mother's serious expressions? He can't imagine her taking after him, can't see the Byers features transposed onto a female face. Maybe she'd look like _his_ mother.

Then it's gone, the image, the idea, and Holly is speaking again.

"Can I still come stay at your house?"

"Of course," he answers automatically, before the question can sink in and he frowns. "Why, is everything okay?"

"Hawkins is _boring_ ," she declares, wrinkling her nose. "I like Chicago and Nance always takes me to get pizza. I like pizza."

He laughs fully at that and Holly smiles at him, eyeing him tentatively. He knows that look and shifts in his seat so she can crawl into his lap. She settles there, hugging him tight for a moment then reaching to pull over her drawing and crayons. From their new position he can see over her shoulder at what she's working on.

Her drawings still have the odd proportions of a child but she's got a natural talent for it, not unlike Will, and there's no mistaking the two figures at the center of the page. Well, mostly at the center. He's there, in a black suit and tie and his long hair colored a bright yellow he knows it’s not, but the majority of the paper is taken up by Nancy. Or, well, Nancy's dress.

He chuckles and Holly smiles at the drawing as she chooses her next color.

"Nance's dress is the biggest ever," she tells him as she uses gray to draw in squiggles he thinks are meant to represent the lace shoulders.

"Yeah, no kidding."

"I tried to hide under her skirt and she yelled at me. I could fit! I'm small."

"I thought you were big."

"I'm a big girl but I'm still _small_ ," she glares at him sideways. "I could hide."

She's probably right, he thinks. That gives him an idea and he looks up at the back of the Wheeler house. Wonders if he should use the back door or sneak into her window for old time's sake.

"I'll be right back, ok?" he murmurs, shifting Holly off his lap. She protests the jostling movement but resettles in his chair, fully engrossed in her drawing once more.

He has to offer nods and thanks to the groups of relatives he slips past but no one stops him outright on his journey back into the house.

+++

In, out.

Nancy focuses on her breathing and the feeling of sweat cooling on her skin in the air conditioning. Her bed is soft, softer than the one she and Jonathan have shared for years now, and the sheets are cool.

If she opened her eyes she'd see a spider web of cracks in the white paint in the ceiling. They're not from age; she caused them when she was 14 and decided it was time to pull down the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets from above her bed. She wasn't a kid anymore, or so she thought.

She inhales deeply, lets her eyes flutter open. They don't go to the ceiling, though. Instead, they get stuck on the monstrosity of a wedding dress crumpled on the floor next to her bed. The pile of silk and lace is everything her mother ever dreamed of, and nothing her daughter ever wanted.

That's fair, she supposes. Her mother wanted a lot of things she never got. The least Nancy could do was give her this.

She closes her eyes again as the door creaks open, shuts again so softly. She can barely hear the turn of the lock and smiles just at the corners of her mouth. She knows who it is.

"Any chance I can get you to put that back on?"

She cracks one eye open and smirks at Jonathan as he perches on the edge of the bed, gesturing to her dress. Tips her feet to the side to knock them into his elbow. Her other eye opens, and her eyebrows raise.

"You're kidding, right? After you spent an hour laughing at it?"

"I just want to see if I could fit under the skirt, that's all."

"Oh Jesus, have you been talking to Holly? She tried to do that _all morning_."

"I mean, yes, but we have really different motivations."

She smirks. "Perv."

He waggles his eyebrows at her in reply. She moves quickly so he can't register what she's doing, lifting her hand from her side. He barely has time to register the lacy scrap in her grip before she pulls it back on her thumb and slingshots it into his face.

"Hey!" He picks it up when it flops into his lap and examines it. "Is this a garter?"

"Mom wanted me to wear it. " She her grin turns wry. "You're supposed to take it off me with your teeth."

For a second he looks like he's considering how fun that would be, then abruptly grimaces. "No, thanks. Not in front of your parents. Or mine. Or anyone else out there."

She laughs and reaches for him, and he lets himself be drawn forward like he always does. Her heart clenches as his eyes slip shut and his chin tips down, and she almost gives in and kisses him like he wants, but instead busies herself undoing his bowtie and unbuttoning his collar.

He looks confused for a second before the cool air hits his skin. She can tell when it does because he sighs in relief.

"I'm taking a break from sweating, too," she explains. The tip of her tongue pokes out from between her teeth as she laces their fingers together. "Only my mother would insist on a dress this big in the middle of August. I swear it's a punishment."

"And yet you're going to put it back on."

"No," she shakes her head and points behind him, at a garment bag draped over the chair her mother replaced her childhood desk set with. "I'm gonna change into my real dress."

She wonders if he knows the muscle in the sharpest part of his jaw clenches whenever he's feeling too much. She knows to watch for it whether the emotion is good or bad, knows exactly where to look to see just how overwhelmed he is.

He doesn't seem overwhelmed now but she's pleased to find she's expecting the exact level of warmth in his eyes when he turns back to her.

Nancy always thought this kind of predictability would be a sign of deathly boredom. Her parents never really let on how good it feels to know someone so well.

Jonathan opens his mouth to say something, but the door handle jiggles loudly and interrupts him.

"Nancy!" Her mother's voice comes through the door. "Are you in there?"

"Yeah, Mom," Nancy calls back. She makes a face at the door, at him.

"Why is the door locked?"

"Because I’m not dressed!"

There's a short pause. "Is Jonathan with you?"

"Yep!"

His eyes widen and he squeezes her fingers tight, hisses, "Nancy!"

"What?" She has to fight back laughter at his scandalized look. "Jonathan, we're _married_."

Still, the tips of his ears turn pink under his hair.

"Well get back out here, you need to cut the cake."

Nancy heaves a great sigh. "Give us a minute, mom, okay? I need to fix my makeup and get dressed again."

"Nancy, that's _not_ appropri—"

"It's _ninety degrees_ out there, Mom, just give me a minute!"

"Hurry _up_ , Nancy." Her mother's gritted teeth are apparent in her voice.

The bed creaks as Jonathan stands, moves to leave, but she uses her hand in his to pull him back to her again. This time his eyes stay open, expecting her to fiddle with his wardrobe yet again, but she pulls him closer, on top of her and into the space between her legs and his face down to hers.

"I bet she's waiting out there," he says between kisses.

"Screw her," Nancy threads her hands into his hair, approaching chin-length now, and tugs on it as she shifts beneath him. "Let her wait."

He won't, though. She can feel it in the way he braces his arms on either side of her head, the way he keeps his hips carefully above her. She sighs against his mouth, runs her hands down his chest and to his waist and that's when he pulls back. Gives her a rueful grin. Pushes off the bed and takes a moment, standing at the foot of it, to catch his breath.

"Don't take too long," he says, and slips out of the room. She blinks at the door, sitting up. Her blood is thrumming just under her skin.

"But I need you to zip me up," she says to the empty space and tosses up her hands.

+++

Her mother is waiting in the hallway when she emerges. The look on her face is stern, ready to chew her out over appropriateness or responsibility or respecting their guests, but when she sees her, it gives way to something that makes tears spring to Nancy's eyes.

She stands a foot in front of her, waiting, trying to not to let on how nervous she is.

"Oh, Nancy," Karen finally sighs. "You look beautiful."

She doesn't resist as her mother pulls her into a hug. Instead she holds her tight around the waist, buries her face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her hairspray and perfume. Her mom has worn the same perfume as long as Nancy can remember, a delicate crystal bottle on her vanity that she used to sneak in and dab onto her wrists before she realized boys don't like girls that smell like their mothers.

That's not totally true; Jonathan never seemed to mind. But she's pretty sure she could be covered in mud and monster guts and Jonathan would still look at her like she hung the moon in the stars. Absolutely sure, really.

"You didn't look at the pictures we sent you." It's not a question.

"Sweetie, I couldn't bear to." Karen lets her go, pushes her back far enough to be able to look her in the eye. "Not until after this. Jonathan wore a suit?"

"With a tie, even." Nancy laughs softly.

Karen's smile is sad around the edges. "I wish you would have let us be there."

"That's not—" She sighs, lets her mother lead her down the hall, down the stairs. "Mom, we didn't invite _anyone_."

"And yet your brother was there."

"Because Will saw our calendar." They've had this argument at least two dozen times.

"And once you realized that you didn't—"

" _Mom_." She stops before Karen can open the door. "Please. In the middle of all of _this_ ," she gestures to herself, her mother, the room around them, the party visible through the window in the backyard, "can you just let it go? It wasn't about you. It wasn't about anyone but us. We just wanted something for ourselves, okay? Just the two of us. And we didn't even get that, not really."

"Nance." Her mother sighs and cups her cheek. "You're just my baby, that's all. My first baby, and always my baby. I wish I had been there, to see that, to tell you how much I love you."

"I love you too, mom."

"Come on. There's a cake melting out there."

Her mother pulls her hand but she stands firm. This feels like a last stand she needs to take.

"Mom."

Karen regards her steadily for a moment, then shakes her head and smiles.

"We'll look at the pictures together, okay? Tonight."

She's left with no choice, really, but to follow.

Jonathan is waiting for her, face calm as glass but eyes swirling. She tucks herself gratefully into his side at the small table where the tall, proud cake is waiting.

"Everything okay?" he murmurs into her ear. She nods, wills the knot in her chest to loosen. Her life is not her mother's; her life is her own. There are no cul-de-sacs, no swollen bellies, no housewife chores or dearly departed careers. She is carving her own path.

Someone hands Jonathan a knife, and she lays her hand over his for the first cut. Remembers to smile at the photographer across the table from them, her parents, his mother and Hopper, their brothers snickering at something behind her hands. Finds she actually has to hold back a laugh as she catches Dustin out of the corner of her eye, hands clutched to his heart as they've been at every ceremonial step of the day. She can see his lips moving, and though she can't hear what he's saying she's sure he's lamenting this, the final loss of the girl of his dreams.

To his right his girlfriend smacks him on the shoulder and to his left Lucas snickers.

It could be worse, she thinks as Jonathan tips the cake onto the little plate, picks up a fork and holds a bite up for her. His eyebrows are raised, his grin twisted in a way that means he can't believe he's doing this. She can't either, to be honest. She thought he would have put up much more of a fight.

She figures if he was willing to go along with some clichés, she can too. She leans in to take the bite, letting the motion distract him from her other hand, reaching.

She gives him a fond smile just before she smashes the cake into his face.

+++

By the end of the day her toes are numb and there's a deep ache in her calves.

Her mother refuses to declare the party over until the moon has risen well into the sky, and in the growing darkness Nancy feels Jonathan start to sway beside her, feels the gnawing ache in her stomach growing and the yawns building behind her jaw, unbidden.

When the last guest has finally left and the party and their significant others have retreated to the basement, she braces herself for another round of family time. Instead her mother presses Tupperware containing leftovers from the catering and forks into their hands and wishes them a good night. As she presses a kiss to her mother's cheek and retreats upstairs with Jonathan on her heels, she thinks can't remember the last time she felt this tired.

They strip off their clothes in silence, sighing with relief. Jonathan sits on her bed in his boxers and undershirt and shoves a dinner roll whole into his mouth as she digs around in their overnight bags until she finds the shirt she wants. He watches her slip it over her head and hands her a dinner roll of her own.

She stuffs it in her mouth and makes exaggerated squirrel cheeks at him as she chews.

The only light in the room is her bedside lamp and Nancy watches Jonathan's ring glint in the dim gold light as he picks up a piece of roast beef with his fingers and pops it into his mouth.

She doesn't think he's noticed just how much she stares at his ring. She catches him staring at her often enough, a stupid, silly grin at the corners of his mouth and his eyes on the crystal on her finger, but he's oblivious to her own fascination. She stares at it when he makes breakfast, when he puts away groceries, when he develops photos. He doesn't take it off to shower or to sleep, she's noticed that too.

She stares at it on the curve of her waist or on top of the covers or sometimes resting on his own face in the morning when she wakes to an unwelcome alarm for her early shift at the paper and a day of assignments that range from uplifting to brutally sad. She steals glances at it on her stomach when he stands behind her at the kitchen table when she gets home, arms tight around her and chest to her back so he can look over her shoulder as she sorts through the mail.

It makes her feel so warm, every time.

She eats absently, out of necessity not relish, as she gets lost in her thoughts. It is far from the first time she's thought about how odd it is she ended up here, in such a different place than she dreamed of. It's not the first time she's wondered what Barb would have to say about it. It's not the first time she's realized she doesn't know anymore, not really. Barb never really thought this far ahead, never had the chance to.

"You okay?"

He's always kept his voice down in her room, from that first night hiding from a monster and every night after.

"Yeah," she smiles and sets the Tupperware aside. "Just thinking."

"About?"

"Oh, you know."

He sighs a laugh, because he does; his grin is small and rueful. "Yeah."

He puts the lid back on his container, reaches for hers and starts to stand, but she stops him with a hand on his forearm.

"Leave it. I'm gonna wake up at 2 a.m. starving, I can tell."

"Gross. Don't drop food on me while I'm sleeping." He puts her Tupperware on top of his on the nightstand anyway, clicks off the lamp as he lets out a yawn. "I'm so tired."

She lets herself be gathered in his arms, kicking at the covers to untuck them further. "What's the last time we went to bed this early?"

"Before the demogorgon?" He guesses with a laugh. He startles in her arms a little, taken by a sudden memory. "Oh man, remember when I made you that sleep tape?"

"Yes! Before we were dating, too! God what was on it, it was like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen and all these droney guys. I mean, it worked, I was so bored I couldn't stay awake." He elbows her at that, but she's already sitting up, a furrow in her brow as she thinks. "I think that's still here, actually."

"Not in the apartment?"

"Those are just the tapes I brought to college with me."

"You didn’t bring _all_ my mixtapes to college with you? I am insulted. I am _hurt_."

"Shut up." She shoves his shoulder as she climbs over him, shakes off his hands as they grab at her thighs. "I think it's in the closet."

"The _closet_?"

"Yeah, there's a box up at the top, it's got some tapes, some of your photos, um, a few letters I think? I can't remember."

"Ok, now I really _am_ insulted."

She grins at him in the dark, lifts onto her tiptoes as she reaches for the shoebox she can see tucked in the highest corner of her closet. Her fingertips brush against it one, twice, just enough to get it teetering.

She catches the box. The bottle that follows crashes onto her head, then her foot.

Her yelp of shock and Jonathan's surprised laugh are both too loud. She hisses at him, and herself too, and tries to figure out if she should rub her head or shake out her foot as she bends down to pick it up.

For a second she thinks she's seeing things. But the slosh of the inch or so of vodka at the bottom of the bottle is too real; its weight in her hand and sound in the air. The red label practically glows in the dim light.

"You're kidding," Jonathan breathes from her bed as she holds it up.

"I thought we finished this," is all she can get out. It's like a relic from another era, from a past that lingers and looms but has retreated so far into the background that sometimes it no longer seems real. 

"Me too." The shoebox falls, forgotten, from her other hand onto the pile of laundry on the floor as she returns to his side. "Why is it up there?

"I must have hidden it from Mom and forgot."

They both stare in wonder at it, like it's from the Upside Down, until she gets an idea. She unscrews the cap, flashes a grin at him before taking a healthy swing. His eyes don't move from her face as she swallows. 

She holds on for about five seconds before letting out a delicate cough. "Oh that takes me back." 

He's already shaking his head as she offers him the bottle. 

"Fuck no," Jonathan laughs. She takes another swig, pushes it toward him again. "No way, it tastes like paint thinner."

"Come on, for old time's sake. There's barely any left." Takes one more sip, prim and delicate this time.

"No way," he says again, even as he takes the bottle from her. He smoothly sets it next to their leftovers as he leans in and steers her mouth to his. 

She lets herself be kissed like when they were young. Holds onto his shoulder with one hand and tips her head up to let him do as he pleases. Time pushes slowly past her, doubling back on itself before breaking open to a glimpse of something in front of her, far away and within reach all at the same time.

Then he pulls away. His face hovers in front of her for only a second before a grimace breaks through.

"Ugh, nevermind, I was wrong. That's lighter fluid."

She pushes his face away from her, laughing as he catches her wrist and pulls her with him as he falls back. They tussle, him trying to bat away her arm as she reaches for the vodka again and again. 

It's a brief struggle before she gives up, settles on top of him with her cheek tucked into the curve of his shoulder. One of his hands rests on her back, the other threads its fingers into her hair. She drags her nose slowly along the collar of his undershirt, nuzzling softly.

From here she can see out her window, into the cul de sac. The streetlights are on but it's still so much dimmer than Chicago, than the streets she's grown used to. Beneath her Jonathan's chest rises and falls, a slow backbeat punctuated by the faster syncopation of his heart. She breathes through her nose, gathers his scent inside her.

Beyond the treetops the sky is velvet black and speckled with diamonds.

"I love you," she murmurs into the dark. He answers in kind.

Outside her window the stars stretch forever. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Write a short epilogue,_ I said. _It'll be fun and light and silly,_ I said. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading. I hope you enjoyed as much I as I enjoyed writing it.


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